24 April 2006
66. That Didn't Suck
Happy Heretics H3 - 30 March 06 to 2 April 06
Thursday. 1pm.
There's only one perk to starting work at 5 in the morning: I can get the hell out of town early. So with a little planning, I was able to leave for Charleston the instant my shift was over. Here’s what I was leaving for:
The Events
1. The Cooper River Bridge Run
2. The Cooper River Bridge Run Pub Crawl
3. Drinking and Camping and Drinking at Shit’s House
4. Sunday brunch, including the World's Best Bloody Marys at Shem Creek Bar & Grill
These events were all connected at some level, but because I'm stupid, I had no earthly idea how. Shit tried to explain it to me, but because of my constant mental state (see the previous sentence) it wasn't sinking in. I just figured I’d learn as I went.
So there I was, driving through the armpit of South Carolina, listening to Howard Stern on Sirius. The show started as I left downtown Atlanta, and finished exactly 5 hours later, as I was pulling into Shit's driveway.
Uranus had also decided to leave early, and was in the middle of his own personal pre-prelube in the house when I arrived. Several hours later, the official prelube was underway, as he, me, my bad grammar and our host took off to do a miniature pub crawl through Mount Pleasant and downtown Charleston. I was determined not to get a hangover at any point, so I started chugging water right after dark. How much water? I was drinking out of gallon jugs all weekend.
Friday. 9:30am.
Morning arrived with that sun-rising thing, Shit leaving for work and me waking up sooner or later. There was a list of stuff for Uranus and I to do, including picking up various foodstuffs. I still had no idea where the hell all of it was going to be distributed, but I figured the events would have to start before all this was going to become clear. During our travels through Mount Pleasant, we happened upon a Goodwill store, and it was at about this point I realized I hadn't purchased a dress for the Bridge Run. So I dragged Uranus inside the store, and to the entertainment of the civilians inside, had him help me pick out a lovely red number. That would end up being the best six bucks I spent all weekend.
If you've never met Shit Happens, here's a summary: the man doesn't stop. He pulled up into his driveway Thursday night at about 8:30 after working his real job and then putting in a few hours at the Expo downtown. He jumped out of the car, threw his work stuff inside and immediately put up two tents in the backyard. And in the time it took me to piss out the last beer I drank, he had the deck swept and the hot tub prepped. Friday was the same thing. He jumped out of the car at 3p and within about 90 seconds, had us starting to unload the car and distributing a ton of food that was going to various places. Some went in his kitchen, some went in his freezers, and other stuff (race food) got packed for an eventual trip downtown. With that done, we all got in the van and picked up a couple kegs (Miller Lite I think) for the house, then went to a beer distribution center to pick up almost 80 gallons of Trumer Pils (that’s good beer, by the way) for various areas of the weekend. His final prep before the official drinking started was hooking up some kegs. My final job was taking Thor and getting 500 pounds of ice. By the time all of us were settled, people started arriving. Perfect timing.
Friday night. A fire was set. Tents were erected. And I know this might be a shock to some of you, but beer was consumed. We got an idea early on who was going to be the best representatives of a hash, and this weekend, it was the freaks from Peach Fuzz. They made the most noise, wore the least amount of clothing, and since there were more hashers from Augusta than any other city, I'll just go ahead and assume they drank the most amount of alcohol. (There are your props, guys... you rock.) There had been rumblings of a possible prelube pub crawl, but that never panned out. Logistical update: Some of the beer we bought went to the campers, and some of the frozen food we bought went to us too. Um... but it was served in a heated form.
Saturday. 6:45am.
I think I passed out about midnight, and when I woke up Saturday morning, I found out some of the more-motivated drunks never went to sleep. I hurried up and got changed into my lovely dress and started helping gather people to walk/run the race. Bucket Slut was someone on my personal Wake Up List, and just like he said, I was going to have to shake the earth to get him up. But shaking the earth didn’t help. After much shaking and yelling, I had to give up and let him sleep.
There were two groups from the house that left before us, but we were still on time. It was already warm enough where we knew the temperature was going to be a good motivator for further beer consumption. The walk to the start: almost two miles. Dead Peter Beater and I got into a deep discussion about random things, and by the time we were swallowed by the thousands of people near the start, we had lost all the other hashers. I say “deep discussion,” but considering I was in a dress and she was half-naked, the discussion couldn’t have been that intellectual. Think Cooter Shooters and having sex with fruit. Don’t ask.
There was an electricity all around us right after we crossed the starting line, but I don’t think it was because it was the official start. I think everyone was just excited the voice from the ultra-annoying race cheerleader was fading out. The first amazing view was when we rounded a turn and caught our first glimpse of the new bridge, now packed with a sea of people. The second was being on the bridge itself and seeing the huge cables heading skyward toward the top of the towers. Did I mention this was the first run on the new bridge? Oh. It was the first run. On the new bridge. Sweet.
The Something-Something Ravenel Bridge is the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America, and has two monstrous diamond-shaped towers. The entire bridge stretches 2 1/2 miles, has a total of eight lanes, and even has a split walking/bike lane. Translation: the thing’s huge. And from any angle, it’s sick-gorgeous.
What I learned duing the r*ce: if you want attention, be a dude and wear a red summer dress.
What DPB learned during the r*ce: if you want attention, flash what God gave you. A lot.
As for the dress part, every few minutes, someone was giving me “compliments” or even wanting to take a picture with the Male Freak Show. Like most other hashers, I’ve done my share of Red Dress Runs and other events where strange attire is common. But I’ve never received this much attention. I’ve got to think it was because I was one of the only people of the 50,000 who was wearing something out-of-the-ordinary. As for the flashing-what-God-give-you part, a lot of firemen, and even some media people got to see boobies.
We started jogging after the bridge, when we got into downtown Chareston. It was about this time that I started running around like a berserk moron, cutting diagonally down the street, dodging sweaty, gawking people. After one of my more energetic sprints, I heard, “Hey, L&F!” Who was it but Yacca from Atlanta, who was doing the r*ce with her mom. Unfortunately, I couldn’t talk long, because there were two certain people who desperately needed to get to the end for beer. So off we went again.
We must have looked pretty rough right around mile 5, because at one point, some police officers told us where to shortcut to the park. Hey, what the hell. We didn’t have numbers, and we weren’t timing ourselves. So we got into the park and eased our way into the Charleston Running Club’s roped-off area. I had an epiphany here, when I realized this was where some of the food went. And there was a lot of beer. The comments about the dress changed here. No longer was it, “Don’t you look cute” and “Hey, that’s your color.” Now, it was “Oh, you’re a hasher, right?” One grey-haired lady asked it and then gave me her hash name. “Once a hasher, always a hasher” was her comment as she moved toward the kegs. Once a drinker, always a drinker. We met one lady who technically never hashed before, but did a Red Dress Run in London a few years ago. She said it was fun, but according to her, they made her husband look like a slut. And that’s bad?
We got word that the buses were about ready to start taking people back to Mt. Pleasant, so a small pack of us left the park. But we were in no way motivated to wait with the sweaty masses in the bus lines, so we walked down the street to the marina and attempted to catch a water taxi to the other side. The idea was to then catch a street taxi from there to the house. Yeah, that was the ORIGINAL idea.
There were more than 50,000 extra people downtown, yet this genius company only had one boat running. It was leaving right when we got there, and then we waited through another cycle. At this point, we realized the bus would have been quicker, but we were still un-sober, so we didn’t care. The funny part was that when we finally got ready to board, they put the rope across right in front of us and said the boat was full. The harriettes made puppy-dog eyes and the guys looked about ready to riot, so they let us on. The ride across the river included many jokes at the expense of the guy in the dress. It seems salty ocean spray (or is that un-salty river mist?) makes civilians a little brave.
On the other side, we further fouled the already-foul public toilets and shuffled over to the bar at the closest hotel, which was conveniently located on the water. It was here we were told that a cab would take two hours, but that make-it-yourself Bloody Mary’s were immediately available and only a dollar. So we sat outside and pretended that we needed to get back to the house. Three rounds later, we were the public entertainment, singing vile limericks and other assorted spurts of nastiness. We had somehow impressed the table of seven civilians next to us, and before too long, I had one of the women’s shoes off and was giving her a foot massage. The guys with her watched in disbelief, as the short, bald loudmouth worked his way into the good graces of the cutest girl at their table. Here’s what she said as I reached for her second foot: “How lucky am I that I can have some guy I don’t even know rub my feet?” Yeah, like I was being punished. I did my best to laugh with a sense of humility, and proceeded to move my hands up her calves.
Just Chris had been with us. He's a DUI lawyer and very aggressive. I got done worshipping at the Altar of Feet and looked up to find him gone. About an hour later, he showed up with his SUV. He told us that he had walked to the front of the hotel and got a family to let him into their hotel shuttle bus. But the shuttle driver was only able to drive him about halfway to Shit’s house, so in a move some of us found astounding, the driver pulled over and essentially kicked him to the curb. Knowing that glory was just around the corner, the brave Just Chris jogged the rest of the way, got his vehicle and drove to the hotel for his moment in the spotlight. After showering him cheers and praise and yays, we motored back to the house. Our three hour trip from downtown to the house was complete.
The sun was warm, and we had been consuming quite heavily, so we were doubly toasty. After telling everyone else at the house about our adventure, our small group eventually blended in with the rest of the drunks. I squeezed in a 15-minute nap and then began chugging from another gallon jug of water. The quality afternoon hangouts were at the end of the dock and in a camp-chair circle among the tents. At 5:15pm, we started getting ready for the pub crawl, and by 5:30, after a mind-numbing negotiation with the cab drivers at the street, we were heading back downtown for the annual pub crawl.
As soon as I found out that the final kegs would be for this night-long event, all the logistics of the weekend finally became clear. (I’m sure you were dying to know that.) About 40 people from the house joined about 30 other people in some random parking lot to watch Shit scamper off. We were thirsty, so we only gave him about a one-minute head start.
I’d have to say the most entertaining part of the night was playing with the pub-crawlers who had never hashed before. We got to see them look around in wonder, as they witnessed what a large number of people without inhibitions can do to a fine drinking establishment. At some point in the middle of our journey, our aggressive buddy Just Chris was named Game Cock, and he further earned his name at the last bar by creating drama with some female. I’ll leave it at that. I can’t remember the name of the last bar, but it’s owned by a hasher, and this was where Slappy finally go so drunk, he fell into some random civilians’ booth. Of all the drunks who got drunk after 6 hours of drinking, he was the most drunk. We all got back to the house and he passed out on a bed, and didn’t move a muscle for about 10 hours.
We had a new group hanging out at the house, and it included Shit’s daughter, who took much pleasure in helping decorate Slappy with multiple Sharpies. I squeezed in a 2 hour nap and then started mixing drinks, and was among the last standing at 5am when the last of the days booze finally kicked in. There were two people left in the hot tub and they were both passed out. Nice.
Sunday. 10am.
I woke up and realized it was 10am. The World’s Best Bloody Marys would start flowing in an hour, so I quickly showered, shaved, got dressed and packed up the car. At some point during this rush, Slappy got up and randomly decided he needed to shave all the hair off his cranium. So he asked the bald scribe for advice. What did the bald scribe say? “Do it, but do it in public.” So we plunked him in a chair outside and I sheared his hair down to stubble. He then proceeded to go back to bed while the rest of us went to Shem Creek Bar and Grill.
Albert La Prince is Shem Creek’s long-time bartender and award-winning oyster shucker and he makes some amazing oyster shooters. Those went down quite nicely with the seafood and the WBBM’s. After a couple hours and a huge dose of caffeine, I was ready for the ride back home.
Yeah, that was a long write up, but remember this, you wanks: that’s not just recapping a trail and circle. That’s recapping four full days. And here’s a recap of the recap: that was an amazing weekend. I was never bored, I was constantly entertained, the beer never stopped flowing, and the company was absolutely outstanding. I drove home barely able to comprehend what just happened. That didn’t suck. Not even a little bit.
FYYFFs. I love hashing.
Thursday. 1pm.
There's only one perk to starting work at 5 in the morning: I can get the hell out of town early. So with a little planning, I was able to leave for Charleston the instant my shift was over. Here’s what I was leaving for:
The Events
1. The Cooper River Bridge Run
2. The Cooper River Bridge Run Pub Crawl
3. Drinking and Camping and Drinking at Shit’s House
4. Sunday brunch, including the World's Best Bloody Marys at Shem Creek Bar & Grill
These events were all connected at some level, but because I'm stupid, I had no earthly idea how. Shit tried to explain it to me, but because of my constant mental state (see the previous sentence) it wasn't sinking in. I just figured I’d learn as I went.
So there I was, driving through the armpit of South Carolina, listening to Howard Stern on Sirius. The show started as I left downtown Atlanta, and finished exactly 5 hours later, as I was pulling into Shit's driveway.
Uranus had also decided to leave early, and was in the middle of his own personal pre-prelube in the house when I arrived. Several hours later, the official prelube was underway, as he, me, my bad grammar and our host took off to do a miniature pub crawl through Mount Pleasant and downtown Charleston. I was determined not to get a hangover at any point, so I started chugging water right after dark. How much water? I was drinking out of gallon jugs all weekend.
Friday. 9:30am.
Morning arrived with that sun-rising thing, Shit leaving for work and me waking up sooner or later. There was a list of stuff for Uranus and I to do, including picking up various foodstuffs. I still had no idea where the hell all of it was going to be distributed, but I figured the events would have to start before all this was going to become clear. During our travels through Mount Pleasant, we happened upon a Goodwill store, and it was at about this point I realized I hadn't purchased a dress for the Bridge Run. So I dragged Uranus inside the store, and to the entertainment of the civilians inside, had him help me pick out a lovely red number. That would end up being the best six bucks I spent all weekend.
If you've never met Shit Happens, here's a summary: the man doesn't stop. He pulled up into his driveway Thursday night at about 8:30 after working his real job and then putting in a few hours at the Expo downtown. He jumped out of the car, threw his work stuff inside and immediately put up two tents in the backyard. And in the time it took me to piss out the last beer I drank, he had the deck swept and the hot tub prepped. Friday was the same thing. He jumped out of the car at 3p and within about 90 seconds, had us starting to unload the car and distributing a ton of food that was going to various places. Some went in his kitchen, some went in his freezers, and other stuff (race food) got packed for an eventual trip downtown. With that done, we all got in the van and picked up a couple kegs (Miller Lite I think) for the house, then went to a beer distribution center to pick up almost 80 gallons of Trumer Pils (that’s good beer, by the way) for various areas of the weekend. His final prep before the official drinking started was hooking up some kegs. My final job was taking Thor and getting 500 pounds of ice. By the time all of us were settled, people started arriving. Perfect timing.
Friday night. A fire was set. Tents were erected. And I know this might be a shock to some of you, but beer was consumed. We got an idea early on who was going to be the best representatives of a hash, and this weekend, it was the freaks from Peach Fuzz. They made the most noise, wore the least amount of clothing, and since there were more hashers from Augusta than any other city, I'll just go ahead and assume they drank the most amount of alcohol. (There are your props, guys... you rock.) There had been rumblings of a possible prelube pub crawl, but that never panned out. Logistical update: Some of the beer we bought went to the campers, and some of the frozen food we bought went to us too. Um... but it was served in a heated form.
Saturday. 6:45am.
I think I passed out about midnight, and when I woke up Saturday morning, I found out some of the more-motivated drunks never went to sleep. I hurried up and got changed into my lovely dress and started helping gather people to walk/run the race. Bucket Slut was someone on my personal Wake Up List, and just like he said, I was going to have to shake the earth to get him up. But shaking the earth didn’t help. After much shaking and yelling, I had to give up and let him sleep.
There were two groups from the house that left before us, but we were still on time. It was already warm enough where we knew the temperature was going to be a good motivator for further beer consumption. The walk to the start: almost two miles. Dead Peter Beater and I got into a deep discussion about random things, and by the time we were swallowed by the thousands of people near the start, we had lost all the other hashers. I say “deep discussion,” but considering I was in a dress and she was half-naked, the discussion couldn’t have been that intellectual. Think Cooter Shooters and having sex with fruit. Don’t ask.
There was an electricity all around us right after we crossed the starting line, but I don’t think it was because it was the official start. I think everyone was just excited the voice from the ultra-annoying race cheerleader was fading out. The first amazing view was when we rounded a turn and caught our first glimpse of the new bridge, now packed with a sea of people. The second was being on the bridge itself and seeing the huge cables heading skyward toward the top of the towers. Did I mention this was the first run on the new bridge? Oh. It was the first run. On the new bridge. Sweet.
The Something-Something Ravenel Bridge is the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America, and has two monstrous diamond-shaped towers. The entire bridge stretches 2 1/2 miles, has a total of eight lanes, and even has a split walking/bike lane. Translation: the thing’s huge. And from any angle, it’s sick-gorgeous.
What I learned duing the r*ce: if you want attention, be a dude and wear a red summer dress.
What DPB learned during the r*ce: if you want attention, flash what God gave you. A lot.
As for the dress part, every few minutes, someone was giving me “compliments” or even wanting to take a picture with the Male Freak Show. Like most other hashers, I’ve done my share of Red Dress Runs and other events where strange attire is common. But I’ve never received this much attention. I’ve got to think it was because I was one of the only people of the 50,000 who was wearing something out-of-the-ordinary. As for the flashing-what-God-give-you part, a lot of firemen, and even some media people got to see boobies.
We started jogging after the bridge, when we got into downtown Chareston. It was about this time that I started running around like a berserk moron, cutting diagonally down the street, dodging sweaty, gawking people. After one of my more energetic sprints, I heard, “Hey, L&F!” Who was it but Yacca from Atlanta, who was doing the r*ce with her mom. Unfortunately, I couldn’t talk long, because there were two certain people who desperately needed to get to the end for beer. So off we went again.
We must have looked pretty rough right around mile 5, because at one point, some police officers told us where to shortcut to the park. Hey, what the hell. We didn’t have numbers, and we weren’t timing ourselves. So we got into the park and eased our way into the Charleston Running Club’s roped-off area. I had an epiphany here, when I realized this was where some of the food went. And there was a lot of beer. The comments about the dress changed here. No longer was it, “Don’t you look cute” and “Hey, that’s your color.” Now, it was “Oh, you’re a hasher, right?” One grey-haired lady asked it and then gave me her hash name. “Once a hasher, always a hasher” was her comment as she moved toward the kegs. Once a drinker, always a drinker. We met one lady who technically never hashed before, but did a Red Dress Run in London a few years ago. She said it was fun, but according to her, they made her husband look like a slut. And that’s bad?
We got word that the buses were about ready to start taking people back to Mt. Pleasant, so a small pack of us left the park. But we were in no way motivated to wait with the sweaty masses in the bus lines, so we walked down the street to the marina and attempted to catch a water taxi to the other side. The idea was to then catch a street taxi from there to the house. Yeah, that was the ORIGINAL idea.
There were more than 50,000 extra people downtown, yet this genius company only had one boat running. It was leaving right when we got there, and then we waited through another cycle. At this point, we realized the bus would have been quicker, but we were still un-sober, so we didn’t care. The funny part was that when we finally got ready to board, they put the rope across right in front of us and said the boat was full. The harriettes made puppy-dog eyes and the guys looked about ready to riot, so they let us on. The ride across the river included many jokes at the expense of the guy in the dress. It seems salty ocean spray (or is that un-salty river mist?) makes civilians a little brave.
On the other side, we further fouled the already-foul public toilets and shuffled over to the bar at the closest hotel, which was conveniently located on the water. It was here we were told that a cab would take two hours, but that make-it-yourself Bloody Mary’s were immediately available and only a dollar. So we sat outside and pretended that we needed to get back to the house. Three rounds later, we were the public entertainment, singing vile limericks and other assorted spurts of nastiness. We had somehow impressed the table of seven civilians next to us, and before too long, I had one of the women’s shoes off and was giving her a foot massage. The guys with her watched in disbelief, as the short, bald loudmouth worked his way into the good graces of the cutest girl at their table. Here’s what she said as I reached for her second foot: “How lucky am I that I can have some guy I don’t even know rub my feet?” Yeah, like I was being punished. I did my best to laugh with a sense of humility, and proceeded to move my hands up her calves.
Just Chris had been with us. He's a DUI lawyer and very aggressive. I got done worshipping at the Altar of Feet and looked up to find him gone. About an hour later, he showed up with his SUV. He told us that he had walked to the front of the hotel and got a family to let him into their hotel shuttle bus. But the shuttle driver was only able to drive him about halfway to Shit’s house, so in a move some of us found astounding, the driver pulled over and essentially kicked him to the curb. Knowing that glory was just around the corner, the brave Just Chris jogged the rest of the way, got his vehicle and drove to the hotel for his moment in the spotlight. After showering him cheers and praise and yays, we motored back to the house. Our three hour trip from downtown to the house was complete.
The sun was warm, and we had been consuming quite heavily, so we were doubly toasty. After telling everyone else at the house about our adventure, our small group eventually blended in with the rest of the drunks. I squeezed in a 15-minute nap and then began chugging from another gallon jug of water. The quality afternoon hangouts were at the end of the dock and in a camp-chair circle among the tents. At 5:15pm, we started getting ready for the pub crawl, and by 5:30, after a mind-numbing negotiation with the cab drivers at the street, we were heading back downtown for the annual pub crawl.
As soon as I found out that the final kegs would be for this night-long event, all the logistics of the weekend finally became clear. (I’m sure you were dying to know that.) About 40 people from the house joined about 30 other people in some random parking lot to watch Shit scamper off. We were thirsty, so we only gave him about a one-minute head start.
I’d have to say the most entertaining part of the night was playing with the pub-crawlers who had never hashed before. We got to see them look around in wonder, as they witnessed what a large number of people without inhibitions can do to a fine drinking establishment. At some point in the middle of our journey, our aggressive buddy Just Chris was named Game Cock, and he further earned his name at the last bar by creating drama with some female. I’ll leave it at that. I can’t remember the name of the last bar, but it’s owned by a hasher, and this was where Slappy finally go so drunk, he fell into some random civilians’ booth. Of all the drunks who got drunk after 6 hours of drinking, he was the most drunk. We all got back to the house and he passed out on a bed, and didn’t move a muscle for about 10 hours.
We had a new group hanging out at the house, and it included Shit’s daughter, who took much pleasure in helping decorate Slappy with multiple Sharpies. I squeezed in a 2 hour nap and then started mixing drinks, and was among the last standing at 5am when the last of the days booze finally kicked in. There were two people left in the hot tub and they were both passed out. Nice.
Sunday. 10am.
I woke up and realized it was 10am. The World’s Best Bloody Marys would start flowing in an hour, so I quickly showered, shaved, got dressed and packed up the car. At some point during this rush, Slappy got up and randomly decided he needed to shave all the hair off his cranium. So he asked the bald scribe for advice. What did the bald scribe say? “Do it, but do it in public.” So we plunked him in a chair outside and I sheared his hair down to stubble. He then proceeded to go back to bed while the rest of us went to Shem Creek Bar and Grill.
Albert La Prince is Shem Creek’s long-time bartender and award-winning oyster shucker and he makes some amazing oyster shooters. Those went down quite nicely with the seafood and the WBBM’s. After a couple hours and a huge dose of caffeine, I was ready for the ride back home.
Yeah, that was a long write up, but remember this, you wanks: that’s not just recapping a trail and circle. That’s recapping four full days. And here’s a recap of the recap: that was an amazing weekend. I was never bored, I was constantly entertained, the beer never stopped flowing, and the company was absolutely outstanding. I drove home barely able to comprehend what just happened. That didn’t suck. Not even a little bit.
FYYFFs. I love hashing.
# posted by L&F @ 9:13 PM 
