Astonishing Shortcuts

             Out of deference to our wonderful sponsors (friends, really, loved ones, some might be so bold to offer), it was only appropriate that we finally had a trail being set from the parking lot of a KFC!  Stephanie would be our hare (corporate-appeaser) for the day and chose the famous Golden Gates location for the On-On.  But before we could even begin the run, some intrepid entrepreneur, sensing that we hashers have our fingers upon the commercial pulse of this city, set up his portable DVD shop (aka. creepy van) over the first check-in.  Never let it be said we carry no influence – and perhaps KFC should look into the DVD market if we command this pull.  KF-D, anyone?

            All that aside, this was a Cuban themed hash and so Stephanie brought along a number of homemade Castro beards for those not-sporting their own version of facial shrubbery.  Very sexy, I’m looking forward to the pictures, you should be too.  We than got the check-in directions from Stephanie and all set off in three different directions.  The first two falsies had been almost completely obliterated so it was a few minutes before those two factions of the pack met up with those on the correct trail, heading north on some big road where people seemed to enjoy honking their horns and calling out to Brian and Dave.  It seems they’re only popular in certain parts of town but hey, that’s better than some of us – I won’t name names.  So anyway, after a check-in, the trail turned onto some neighborhood roads complete with people trying to drive home who, I am sure, appreciated a road full of people running and occasionally blocking traffic.  Continuing along, we made our way past one check-in and than reached a second one where Frank and Jerome went in one direction and everyone else, wisely choosing the non-Frank route, followed the other path.  No calls were heard from Frank and everyone on the other path encountered a kind, older man who was sweeping the road where his lawnmower had deposited grass clippings.  The flour was followed, and than it dropped off for a moment, and than there was a box call ahead. 

            After allowing a minute for two for everyone to reach the box, it dawned on everyone that Frank and Jerome had not turned back and not reached the box.  Only than was it revealed that we had all been on the wrong path, that the man sweeping the grass clippings had covered-over and than swept up the falsie marker we were intended to see before the box, and that this had became a case of mass-hash shortcutting.  We would all be punished for this later, but at the time, it seemed a pretty sweet situation.

            We only had to wait about five minutes for the followers of the true path to catch up and we took off again, following the trail off of the paved roads and onto some dirt paths.  There was a check-in here that, once following the correct trail, led us to a cache of pre-mixed mojitos, sprigs of mint, and a bottle of rum for those thirsty hashers.  This, along with the massive shortcut, was the highlight of the trail, in my humble opinion.  Should anyone say otherwise, they will be wrong, take my word for it.  Nothing says good exercise/run like a good mojito stop. 

            My memory lacks details after the mojito stop, but I think we cut through a couple more suburban streets before reemerging near the Golden Gates shopping center and cutting across the large parking lot, back to the KFC, the dear and wonderful KFC.  It was here that we discovered the curse of the group shortcut as we returned well before the walkers and Dave had given his car keys (and thus access to the beer) to Kathy.  It would be another ten minutes or so before the walkers arrived and the coolers were released.  They were grueling minutes but they made the beers that much better.  Nice run, unintentionally short run, but a nice run.  Nice mojitos!