January 2013 | By: The Scrutable Scribe
Many a Muddle in Mengwi
Early starters streamed out of the car park at the Mengwi sports stadium as the hares stood there and actually TOLD THEM WHERE THE PAPER STARTED. “Heresy!”, “treason!”, “witchcraft!” came the outraged shouts in my mind, but my flabber was so gasted that I was capable of only goldfish mouth movements and dolphin squeaks. We were down to about 20 hashers when hare Whitebait made a few “disclaimers”. “Don’t follow the green signs or arrows… or the white ones, or arrows, or paper if any… we don’t know where they come from but they’re not ours… ours are yellow and so is our paper, mostly, and if you come to a large ceremonial looking gate in a spacious area and there’s no paper, we tried to put some yellow spray paint down on the grass but it didn’t really work… then just keep on going … even though you can’t see any paper. The start’s just up there”. Those of us who hadn’t slipped into a coma or started drooling on the hasher standing next to us nodded in a glassy eyed stupor and robotically trotted off.
The trouble started immediately when there was a difference of opinion among harriers as to what was meant by “just up there”, due to a lack of paper at the outset but this was small beer compared to what was to come. It was never really made clear whether we shouldn’t follow the green signs under any circumstances or whether by sheer coincidence or otherwise the indicated direction of the green arrows may (or may not have) coincided with the hare’s intention. It’s just as well Whitebait didn’t continue with “The Mengwi Address” or some of the comatose at that point may have flat lined. Confusion reigned when Drunken Bastard (whose hashing technique, by the way, seems to have about as much aerobic value as paper, rock scissors) and some other “earlies” attempted to follow a green arrow in mid rice field . Jangle Balls’ Good Samaritan urges got the better of him even though D.B. and co were not privy to the hare’s instructions and it would have served the bastards right to get lost, J.B. advised them against such a rash move. Paper, it transpired, did actually go in the direction of said green arrows. This made J.B. look like an idiot if not a rotter for deliberately sending earlies in the wrong direction, not to mention somehow set off an epidemic of bad advice.
Both Long and Strong and Rosebush became hopelessly paperless, L and S going around in circles in a kampong, Rosebush, I think, falling victim to the “large ceremonial gate” problem, then both proceeded to dispense directional advice to oncoming hashers who as a result also got lost in various intriguing ways. Fingers were pointing everywhere. Agent Orange later said he gave up trying to make sense of it, turned stadium – wards and looked around to see 15 people following him. Only one person I spoke to later actually witnessed the split.
Who knows what went wrong? I’m sure the hares had every unassailable, gilt edged intention. There may well, once again, have been alien visitations and paper abductions. It was a very pretty area and a huge improvement on the last run conducted from this site. There were river crossings and beautifully spacious padi territory, well selected pathways and even some ups and downs to keep things interesting, multiple bridge crossings on the long. Despite our general bewilderment, short runners were indeed out for an hour and twenty and we had a nice “pant in the country” all things considered.
Nobody wanted to say anything too negative, considering the senior hare’s long and distinguished hash service, when Rosebush later pointedly asked in the circle if anyone had actually been on paper the whole run. There was much clod kicking embarrassment. “Um, not as such”, “Well, kind of”, “Not altogether”, “It depends how you look at it” etc. Of course it didn’t matter and of course we all had shitloads of fun.
In an interesting game of “guess who the Hash Master is”, Labia and Wooden Eye seemed to swap roles until it became more like “guess who the R.A. is.” After a few beers in the dark they kind of morphed together to become Wooden Labia, a medium to largeish guy with very short dark hair and a Welckney accent. He was on top form though and had us pissing ourselves ‘til we wished we’d brought the adult diapers. Jangle Balls led us on an impolitic ‘round- the-world piss take tour starring Kiwi sheep farmers, exploding Palestinians, loud Americans in restaurants and ditzy Aussie housewives named Nirelle or Kylie or something.
Enough was enough however, when a hastily constructed circus tent arrangement suddenly appeared at the other end of the car park and started emanating deafening Dangdut music. We clapped our hands to our ears and fled on wobbly legs like recently sprayed cockroaches.
See you next week for Dancing Queen and his famous balls of meat.
On on
