(Courtesy Brown Finger)
With Songkran hangovers and joyous memories of Saturday’s splendid “family” hash still echoing
through contentedly vacant skulls, we arrived in dribs and drabs at the Hash Pub to wait for the
Songthaew to arrive to take us to the Sunday Happy Hash. And we waited . . . and we waited . . . and
we waited . . . happily, of course.
Five minutes after the allotted hour of departure, HRA decided to take decisive action, so he handed
his mobile to a kindly soul behind the bar and instructed her to phone the Songthaew driver to find
out what the hell was going on. The message came back that allegedly – and to avoid any possibility
of being misconstrued in what I am saying here, I say again, allegedly, Mr Poo had told the driver
that there would not be a Happy Hash run because of the holidays. Now I am sure that Mr Poo will
have a different take on the whole affair, but then he wasn’t there, he was having his own holiday
fun, armed with a water gun, down on the Moat. So no doubt the alleged “mismanagement” will all
be cleared up to everyone’s utter satisfaction at some later date, probably from the block of ice at
the male hash on Tuesday.
Anyway, the true spirit of the hash kicked in and a random passing Songthaew was secured for
the duration of the hash for roughly the same fistful of baht, so the careful Hash Cash was not
overly concerned, yet. On the way out to the run site – it just had to be a very long way out on this
particularly mismanaged occasion – we grabbed a couple of sacks of ice, some water and some beer,
but no, we couldn’t buy beer because it wasn’t yet 17.00, and the Tesco Lotus crew were not about
to change the rules for a few crazy Farang.
We arrived only half an hour after the run time, which in many ways was a miracle, to find that good
old Chucky Doo had some beer in his car, which the Hash Cash agreed, after much arm-twisting,
to buy, but only one slab to go with the leftovers from the previous run – a canny lad is our Hash
Cash. So, after all that, we had the bare essentials for a hash – beer and ice and a hare and a goodly
number of hashers to make merriment with, and to top it all Suckit was there and had hauled a
cooler from his house despite the pain of his recent operation – hoorah for Sucking Stitches!
Hollow Legs was the nervous hare for the day, worrying about anything and everything. I thought
he was going to have a breakdown, but his new girlfriend had him on a ball-controlled leash and she
managed to pull his quivering nuts and shaking head out of the safety of his ass so that he could give
the brief and point us in the direction of the trail.
After yesterday’s rocket-fuelled drink fest and the calamitous earlier events with the non-appearing
Songthaew et al, I was glad to be running in the zone, as it were, where everything but putting your
foot down in a safe place is totally forgotten and totally superfluous. And it was a long run, about
8.5k, which suited my need to sweat out beer and to ease other tensions that somehow had gone
un-eased for a couple of days. The walkers got picked up by the Songthaew after about 4k and the
rest of us ploughed our way along good trails and mostly through good checks for the remaining 4.5,
good checks, that is, apart from the circle check that appeared to have already been kicked out by
the hare himself because there was a V check about 20 yards ahead, and one obviously wrong trail
off a V check that had the check back carefully hidden from view. Even though I knew it was the false
trail, I just had to find that blasted check back . . . and when I couldn’t, I turned to follow the trail
back to the V, and there it was, stapled at head height to the wrong side of a tree. WTF . . .
Anyway, I can’t remember much more about the run as I was still fighting a sinister hangover that
was trying desperately to make me lose my footing and to murder me on the point of a sharp rock or
the trunk of a gnarly tree. Suffice it to say, Hollow legs and the ball-clenching Rosanne did a fine job
with setting the trail and we all arrived almost together sweating and cursing back at the A, all that
is except the ball-twisted Seman Sores – yes folks, its true I tell you – who arrived a bit later, just as
Frozen Dick was about to “run” back up the trail to look for him before it got too dark. WTF . . .?
The refreshingly convivial sound of a Suckit Circle permeated the hot evening air for a little while,
and then the more serious and clipboard-armed hare took it over with stories and jokes and the
occasional splash that lasted long into the night. And then it was all over, and there was no on-on, so
we clambered into the Songthaew with our new and friendly Thai driver and headed back to town.
And do you know what, our most amazing Hash Cash had got it right, there had been more than
enough beers, enough in fact for a rodie, albeit one of those tasteless San Miguel Light things that
some hashers but not many seem to enjoy.
So there you have it, a great run by Hollow Legs ably assisted by the nut-tugging Roseanne, and
in the end we had beer and ice to enjoy while the balmy evening turned black and a couple of tiny
flashlights occasionally pieced its heavy veil. As for the confusion at the start of the day, well that’s
all just part of the hash – who cares? It all turned out right in the end . . . didn’t it? And there will
eventually be a perfectly rational and totally understandable explanation for it all . . . won’t there?
Of course there will, I’ll bet my little brown finger on it!