My journey to the Rat Hash started in Arlington VA. I had intended to make the NVHHH run at 3:00 that afternoon, since they were my first hash and I miss some of them some of the time. Unfortunately, I overslept and was moving slowly, so I arranged to call Tu-Tu Fairy on trail. I arrived in State College at about 4:00 at found the hashers (Tu-Tu, Down on Beaver, ICBM, Grizzly Schnizz, Spudmuffin, Beaver Balls, and Kate (YTBN)) at Chi-Chis scarfing free chips. Floppy and Hate Crime were out laying the trail. I took two of the hashers in my truck and we auto-hashed downtown, and Chumlee and Slow n’ Cummin drove by picked up some more of the hashers. I think only Beaver, Spudmuffin, and ICBM were left on trail. We checked many bars but saw no "B"s. We drove back and forth, dropping people off, etc., and found Chumlee et al. at the start. I then found was directed to Zeno’s to get the hares and what remained of the pack. (If they had listened to me and we had gotten out at Zeno’s when we saw flour, we would have found the pack, but at least we didn’t use the Zeno’s bathroom and not check the bar. Now that would be stupid.) At last we all found each other at the Fairy-Beaver household, where we lost Spud and Kate, but gained Slim Jim and Wee Willie, so that’s alright.
I proceeded to Punxsutawney in the Slim Jim mobile with Grizz and a bottle of Boone’s daquiri or something, which did not last the entire trip. We eventually arrived at the appointed field with few "detours." We were told to drive under a rope without any lights on to the place where we were gathering, I assume to avoid payment of any kind. There we encountered hashers of many and varied types as we checked in. The field was dark, cold, and covered in cow patties. Tu-tu, thinking ahead, gave us very thin, white sweatshirts for haberdashery, which did not provide one bit of warmth but did attract dirt like shit attracts flies. Come to think of it, the sweatshirts may have been attracting shit, too. At least the shirts had pretty pictures.
After registration, the attendees of the afternoon pre-lewd gathered for a small circle, because all of us loser auto-hashers prevented one earlier. Things start to get fuzzy here, and I think I may confuse the earlier ceremonies for the later ones. I’m pretty sure I did a visiting hasher down-down and an auto hasher down-down, and maybe more. Did I do a PUSSY down-down, or was that later? Or both? I don’t know. Whatever. I was chastised by Date Rape Barbie (who has one of the coolest hash names I have ever heard and seems to be nicer than most of the Harrisburg-Hershey crew, not that that’s saying much) for calling people PUSSYs, but since I was only calling PUSSYs PUSSYs, it was a compliment and we cleared that up. I had some of ICBM’s fruit punch. Then I had more.
After the first circle, we all dressed as warmly as possible while Chumlee bravely attempted to get the fire to actually provide heat so we could brave the long, cold wait until midnight and the start of the run. Many of the brighter hashers headed to a roaring bonfire not far off to stay warm while the rest of us just drank to make us think we were warm. The other bonfire taunted us with "our fire’s better, our fire’s better." My retort of "we’ve got a keg" only got me shushed because alcohol was not allowed in our particular field. Oops. At some point, more pack members were recruited from the other bonfire (one of whom was wearing a Superman shirt and cape and an Evel Kneivel helmet!). As an aside, the creators of the other fire were mightily impressive--by only 9:00 they had a huge bonfire and were so drunk that they could barely lean against their van! Kudos.
At some point, we got the fire burning enough to not freeze. Lorenna passed out and he was wrapped up to avoid hypothermia. I had some more of ICBM’s fruit punch, but then that ran out. We gathered wood. We drank beer. I met a lot of hashers, but I was drinking and it was dark, so there’s not much chance of me recognizing them in the future. I’m sure something happened here, but nothing stands out. Oh wait, Horny Duck arrived, but Beth was absent. It seemed that the owner of the field was not going to start charging for parking until midnight, but there were already many hundreds of idiots drinking in her field. So she asked Beth to block the entrance with her truck and she "would be back." Uh-huh. Beth, being the volunteer fireperson, community service, person that she is, complied. We didn’t see her for a long time, but we thought of a name (see below).
Eventually, Tu-Tu told us to proceed to the start. Someone roused Loreena again. We headed in a mass to Gobbler’s Knob, home of Punxsutawney Phil, where we startled the state troopers guarding Phil. They wouldn’t let us near him for a picture, so we had the big group picture taken at a sign of something or another (coming soon to a Web page near you). The trail then proceeded into town. Since I was overdressed, liquored up, and out of shape, I soon settled into a nice walking pace with Grizzly. Soon Evel Kneivel came by in a van and offered us a ride. Oh Yeah!! On the trail we passed other hashers and a hare gave us to directions ("park at McDonald’s"). We did and proceeded to the nearest bar and started imbibing. All was well until the songs started (Groundhog Day is a fucking day) and we were told that "shouting is okay but keep it clean." The hashers behaved for a minute or two but then threatened to start again. The hares got us out of there before the constabulary were called.
The trail proceeded through town, some neighborhoods, and up, up, and up. (By the way, I heard a good joke yesterday: I like smoking, because it makes me feel like I just had sex. I’m up to two packs a day and boy is my arm tired.) The trails eventually plateaued for the second beer check. There was some sort of can beer for us and Lorenna had passed out again, so there was one more for me!
After the check, we returned to the patty-field to restoke the fire and proceed with the ceremonies (some of Lorenna’s friends carried him). The hares, Tu-Tu Fairy and were first recognized for being the wankers that they are. At least they didn’t get us arrested or anything. Many down-downs were consumed out of Julius Caeser head. (The story of the head: we were on an Ides of March Toga hash in Nittany Valley, co-hared by myself and Chumlee, which is one of my proudest moments as a hasher. At one bar, we noticed a styrofoam head of Julius Caesar behind the bar--a Sambucca promotional. Tu-tu asked if he could have it. No. Buy it? No. Borrow it? Yes, as long as we return it. He swears that as soon as the old owner buys the bar back and gives it its old name, he’ll return it. Of course, it is now S&M Julius Caesar head, courtesty of ICBM.) There were no, repeat no, visitor down-downs. Since this was the first run of the Terra Porcus Lux Rat Hash, there were no visitors. If any hasher from a hash not represented at the first run comes in any other year, they will be visitors.
At one point, Beaver Balls called the circle to attention for a moment of silence in honor of Magic, whose funeral was being held at that moment. The hash bowed their heads and raised their glasses in honor of this outstanding hasher.
Maybe this is when we sang the PUSSY song. I definitely sang the PUSSY song at some point. There were a lot of down-dons (I think), but I was drinking hard because I thought we were going to kill the keg. Everyone settled by the fire in order to tough it out until morning, or slept in cars. I awoke to Horny Duck peeking into Slim Jim’s (aka Fuck You’s) car and saying "there’s no-one in here, just a sleeping bag." Hey, I was in the bag! I got out and everyone was coming back from seeing the rat--thanks for waking me up. I drove all that way and got little sleep and I didn’t even see the rat. They told me stories of fireworks, the Star Wars down-down song, and the rat. I didn’t miss much. We were then off to home and real sleep, with only the morons directing traffic hampering our progress (don’t get Beaver Balls started). Shitty, shitty, hash. I won’t be back next year.
Insincerely and disrespectfully submitted,

Regular Pervert