Howdy Hashers,

       Yes, it’s Puff the Magic Drag Queen here to assault you with the tale of the harrowing horror that hit the herd Thursday the thirteenth. Ralph, your usual purveyor of this paltry parable, was one of the evening’s co-hares and therefore barred from Scribing his own trail. His excuse for flaking out once last month was (soon-to-be fiance) Just Sara forbade him from hashing on Valentine’s night. Oh, you hadn’t heard about the impending announcement? Ask TIMMY! why such has not become common knowledge. His response will be, “I’m still trying to find some friggin’ way to prevent it!”  Be that as it may, I again find myself slave to the keyboard rather than the beer stool this Saturday afternoon. (And people wonder why I retired from Scribing)

       Let’s lay the foundation for this week’s chapter in the seemingly never-ending trail tales of terror Surf City is constantly subjected to. No doubt many of you have heard this simplistic definition of success: Success is doing the right thing the right way at the right time. Allow me to offer this antithesis to that axiom. Failure: A trail laid by CSI and Ralph. There. That should define the parameters of Hash four-oh-two for even the dumbest of you out there in reader land. Moving right along though...

       Point A was the collection of cottages where CSI passes out on a regular basis on Portola Drive across from the closest thing Santa Cruz has to a radio station. I cannot give you the exact address because CSI said he’d kick my ass if I did. While lacking a view of Monterey Bay, one can easily see, as well as regretfully smell, the swamp that surrounds the radio station transmitter towers. Of course I guess if you’re blind drunk when you get home as CSI usually is, the odor is not an issue.

       Gloriously, the evening sun shone down upon our little half-mind filled heads for the first time this year. Yes, daylight saving time has arrived. On the down side, I can now see the bizarre and downright hideous attire many of my kennelmates have chosen to wear. (See Hash Flash) I put my blinders on and walked from group to group in an effort to find a conversation worth my valuable time. My efforts went unrewarded. While there were many conversations transpiring, it some became obvious to me that the vast majority of them were either tortuously boring or were the product of a demented or moronic mind. What follows are those that I found the least offensive.

       Tater Tits was bragging about going to the car races Friday night. Where, you may inquire? Possibly some huge NASCAR event or the Long Beach Grand Prix? Well, not QUITE. More like the dirt Watsonville Speedway. I drive faster on Highway 17 than one could ever aspire to on the muddy, rut-filled Watsonville Waddle. Pressed Cling Peaches, your hare on the twenty-seventh, was asking Dr. Nappy-Headed ‘Ho, one of our two resident gimps, whether she would be available to man the Beer Check on his trail. I guess he figures she’s not good for anything else right now. I wonder if he expects her to say, “Beer, Long Island Iced Tea...or me?” I see Lizzardo is making another appearance. You may remember him as the joker that drove from Philadelphia for our Stupor Bowl festivities. Anyway, he’s moved considerably closer. He only drives down from Menlo Park now. I guess we should take heart in that he seems to be getting a LITTLE smarter at least. Here’s Vince Lamblowme’s clique, let’s worm our way into the circle. Vince is telling joke punch lines and asking people if they know the joke it ended. He was not receiving many nods in the affirmative. Some of them sounded like the pathetic excuses he gives Mrs. Lamblowme when he arrives home late and intoxicated from a hash. Banana Basher, notorious for having the ability to talk the ear off a stalk of corn, was saying (bragging?) how he has taken Monday, St. Patrick’s Day, off work which will allow him to begin drinking when the bars open. I do not understand why this is so different from his usual regime. He felt this so important, so critical to everyone’s happiness tonight, he was STILL talking about it during Religion. We’ll save that tirade of his for later though. I saved the worst for last. Grab your bottle with both hands for this one. Overheard Serial Box whispering to Daddy War Bucks: “So, have you ever dated anyone in the Hash??

       Okay, after mopping the sweat from your brow, I hope you’re ready for CSI and Ralph’s version of Instructions of Trail. As CSI droned on, I looked around to gauge my kennel mates take on all this. Here’s what I saw: Banana looking for the Beer Trough, Hogazm shoving more stuffing into her bra, Serial Box touching-up her makeup and Pearl and Norm playing rock-paper-scissors. IoT was not an especially auspicious or inspiring beginning for trail, will someone please wake me when it’s over?

       Fifteen minutes or thereabouts having wasted away, GM Last Call Norm noticed hashers had pretty much pre-assembled themselves in the rough approximation of a circle. She likes it when we make her job easy for her. Too bad our hare-pair failed to conform to standard Surf City practices. Anyway, here’s the poor bastards that showed up for hash four-oh-two: Vince Lamblowme, Serial Box, Banana Basher, Pressed Cling Peaches, Dr. Nappy-Headed ‘Ho, Tater Tits, Pearl Necklace, Hogazm Snatch.Cum, Rod Lover, Chokacola, Swiss Army Cock, Lizzardo, Loose Stool, Jizz Bollah, Burning Bush, Mother’s Little Felcher, dBASED, Hot Wheels, Little Spit, acting RA Hairy Potter, HC TIMMY!, GM Last Call Norm and acting Scribe Puff the Magic Drag Queen.

       Okay, enough pussy-footing around, we’re on-out Surf City. Down CSI’s driveway to Portola Drive where a hare arrow on-lefts us to the evening’s first check at the intersection with Corcoran Avenue. TIMMY! soon sounds on-on on-left and on-up Corcoran. The next check was at the intersection with Felt Street. On-on was sounded on-left onto Felt and eventually brought us to the next check at Seventeenth Avenue. A couple of losers on-righted towards the railroad tracks (Please, no!) while another group crossed 17^th into the parking lot for Simpson’s Family Swim Center. Jizz Bollah had turned his snout on-left onto 17^th and soon gave the on-on. The herd took off in pursuit.

       The next check was at Merrill Street. An on-right onto Merrill proved the correct guess here. Merrill is a long and straight, not to mention boring, asphalt piece of real estate. Let’s fast forward past the on-left at the end of Merrill onto Fourteenth Avenue to the next check at 14^th and East Cliff Drive. No one was stupid enough to believe an on-right would be the hare-pair’s choice. Most wanted to go directly across East Cliff to get a glimpse of Monterey Bay. No luck though, on-on was sounded on-left onto East Cliff and then across East Cliff and onto Johan’s Beach Drive. Strangely enough, Johan’s Beach Drive does NOT deposit one at Johan’s Beach but rather spits you out onto Sunny Cove. So, we finally did get to see the bay but we had to go onto a beach that has a sign saying, Warning, Big Rocks Underwater. Now while that may come as an Epiphany to some people around here, anyone that graduated high school is aware there are entire mountain ranges beneath the deep blue sea. And, needless to say, sand has to be at the top of Surf City’s list for LEAST desirable surface upon which to trot. Anyway, up the cliff onto Sunny Cove Drive, on-left up to East Cliff again and on-right onto East Cliff was the next area on the agenda.

       There’s not much to say for the next half-mile so let’s observe a few minutes of silence as we pass by the backside of the radio station across from CSI’s and wonder why the hell we ever left his driveway in the first place. I must admit though I was becoming fascinated by the reality that this trail was actually becoming worse than I’d previously feared it would. Next for us was an on-left onto 24^th Avenue which through some misinterpretation of road-building curves on-right and ends at 26 Avenue. Here a check was solved and the pod plodded across 26^th onto Fresno Street. When Fresno reaches Moran Lake Park, the tribe was sent to a check on the banks of the lake, and I use the word “lake” only because a sign calls it such, where we encountered a check. About this time I began to believe CSI and Ralph were two ex-girlfriends of mine that underwent a sex change operation so they could continue torturing me. Daddy War Bucks and Snatch-dot-Cum decided they were heading on-left no matter what the friggin’ check told them so, as it was getting dark and I did not want to be alone in this area, I followed them. We were in luck, trail actually did proceed this way. At least the stench from the “lake” was far more subdued than when Jizz Bollah and Aunt Cumima dragged our butts through here. When this path comes back to civilization, trail went on-left where weary mongrels were treated to our highly-favored Beer Near mark. In a clearing beside a waste treatment plant where two people were gunned down last year, we finally found our hare-pair nonchalantly slurping away on Beer Check beer.   Eventually, we were joined by Banana Basher who (wisely) stopped off at the locals-only market on the corner of 26^th and Fresno for a beer. As slow as he was walking I don’t see how he could possibly have been thirsty though.