June 2013 | By: The Scrutable Scribe
"Follow That Car! Really, Really Slowly" or "That is an ex - Labrador" or "Spook, Ring Tail and One Eyed (Trouser) Snake Take the Controls and Save the Day"
It all started innocently enough: a run was to be held on The Bucket, Labia was to hare, and people were to show up for it, everything was to be tickety boo. Ah, but that was before the Mystery of the Disappearing Split, the Loss of Consciousness of a Labrador, the Unfortunate but Thankfully Brief Collapse of one Jenny Two Melons and some Extremely Unusual Traffic Conditions on Jalan Raya Uluwatu. I will now officially stop using capitals, thank you.
The traffic on the Bypass is, as you are well aware, utterly insane. My passengers assure me (yours truly was at the helm) that we came within inches of certain death at the hands of the driver of a massive Parawisita bus at the Benoa turnoff / Bypass traffic lights. He apparently attempted to ram me and judging by the volubly inarticulate vocalizations and frantic gestures of my fellow travelers at the time, there was some verity in this theory. I didn't even notice and drove blithely on, removing the finger buried deep in my left nasal passage to inspect the resulting excavation, as probably did the bus driver, ignorance is bliss.
On that woeful aforementioned Bucket Jalan Raya, traffic was so gridlocked I got out of the car, walked back to the airport, flew to Oslo, accepted my Nobel Prize for literature, made an impassioned speech mentioning early starters and dog owners by name, had lunch at Maxim's of Paris and still got back to the car twenty minutes before the turnoff to the Paint Ball car park.
Once again, the launch site was more of a dog show than a hash, the highlight of which (after the usual gnashing, growling, yelping and snapping events) was Monkey Balls' ill fated best friend producing a fine, steaming, bulky specimen of doggie doo smack in the middle of the potential circle, yes bull's eye! And took home the award, charmed I'm sure.
Labia advised us that the short was an hour's walk, the run an hour's run and to tippy toe past cows. It was obvious that many of our normal number were still cooling their heels in the traffic jam. At all events, we were under starter's orders at 4.30 sharp.
I'll have you know, there was nothing wrong with the run. It was surprisingly green and almost forested in parts. There were certainly some sweeping views of Kuta, West Bali, the airport, Benoa and the new toll road. Some of the countryside was almost Yorkshire –like (a poomp is a poomp and a poorst is a poorst). There was the usual fun listening to Dutch conversations that sound like nonsense in English e.g. the one had between two hulking blokes behind us: "I'm a funny little girl", "Finish your beer", "Cockroach!, cockroach!". And we tip toed duly around some cows.
"Some" say that the split was blindingly obvious, but "some" were not with our group of 8-10 souls who don't see as well as we used to, admittedly, but are yet to be fitted with white canes and walkers and saw nothing remotely of the sort. "Others" say it was obscured by foliage, or a motorbike. Who knows? Maybe the hare had been accidentally beamed up to the planet Tralfamadore by Commander Zorg at the exact moment he was making up the split, and then had his memory erased. By the time the full moon had risen and we were still stumbling around the schizophrenic-man-made canyons behind G.W.K. it was 6.30 p.m. and I could barely make out the figure of Long Dong Silver streaking in the opposite direction in search of spouse J.T. Melons.
Back at the Paint ball Ranch I received a phone call in my underwear (I was in my underwear, not the ph. call) on a 3rd party's h.p. from One Eyed (Trouser) Snake informing me of the unconscious state of the unfortunate Ms. Melons, who also being among the non-split spotters, had succumbed somewhere in Labyrinth Canyons. I reported this to the returned, anxious and empty handed Long Dong. It was then that a series of misadventures ensued whereby a well meaning handful of us flew around the car park like a startled flock of bats (as opposed to a startled block of flats) losing torches, stepping on them, giving the only h.p. with which we had contact with the missing back to its owner and following the normally incredibly well oriented Organ Grinder up a blind alley in our cars; then getting hopelessly ensnared in glacial traffic on that unmentionable jalan (Uluwatu).
Finally we were apprised by h.p. (having bought pulsar) that Spook, O.E. (T.) Snake and Ringtail had somehow commandeered a taxi at the front of G.W.K. and were on their way back to Rancho Painto Ballo, Melons in hand. We putar-ed and for the third time that day millimetered our way back as well, passing Monkey Balls and his previously living canine wrapped in a bag (the dog, not Monkey Balls) on a motor bike in a one man, one dog funeral procession. Apparently it too eventually came around (against all odds), living to crap in another circle another day. By this time, there was in effect no beer left and it appeared that Labia had drunk it all: "I sent aht the fahkin' late stahtahs" he slurred "and they fahkin' came back in 35 minutes", obviously having seen the split. The mystery deepened.
We do, though, thank the Hash Master for not only the run, but keeping the circle going while half of it was driving around in circles looking for the other half, all in a day's work for Major Labia. On on back to somewhere rhyming with The Sticky Garrote, which only took an hour and a half for a 30 km drive despite dire predictions and the mess at Simpang Sior. Roll on toll.
See you at Celine Dion Day next week.
