投稿日: Oct 17, 2020 1:51:26 AM
Scribe: Crusader
Hares: Safety Last and Whiplash
Place: Hakuraku
Runners: 12
Weathre: Cloudy
Distance: 6.3K (Eagle)
Hayama Hash – an S&M Club?
Let’s look at the “S” side of the equation side first: who are the sadists in our midst? That’s an easy one to answer.
Wikipedia tells me that the Marquis de Sade was a Frenchman, but he should really have been born Canadian. Most of you have heard or read about the notorious Milgram experiment, in which participants had to deliver (thankfully fake) electric shocks to hidden “learners” if those learners made a mistake. The experimenters discovered that, despite increasingly frantic screams from the learners, the volunteers gradually increased the shocks to levels that would have been fatal, had they been real. Why do I mention this? Because what was never revealed at the time is that, when broken down by nationality, it was the Canadian volunteers who reveled in administering the most pain - a fact which will come as no surprise to those of you who have run any of the three trails set by our reclusive Canadian Hares in the last three months.
Consider the evidence:
(1) One of our Hares is called Whiplash, a name she richly deserves. One glance in her direction brings to mind images of leather boots, whips, chains, candle wax and cheese graters. A dominatrix through and through.
(2) In both July and August our Hares made a conscious decision to start their runs at the hottest time on two of the hottest days of the year. Did our Hares mistake Fahrenheit for Centigrade when they watched the weather forecast? Have they been spending so much time isolating inside their air-conditioned apartment that they hadn’t realized that outside it was a little warmer that Yellowknife in January? Or were they simply showing an indifference to human suffering that would have made even the good Marquis blush?
(3) Few of you know that Safety Last jealously guards a topographical map of the Yokohama area, so that when he plans a trail he makes sure that he takes us up every single one of the steepest hills in the vicinity.
(4) Our Oh My Dear Leader Sweetie sets a bad example by encouraging Hares to set long trails, but this pair takes this exhortation to its logical conclusion by treating it as the perfect excuse to push us almost to the limits of human endurance.
So we know who the sadists are. But where are the masochists? That has been pretty clear for almost twelve years now, but it became absolutely obvious on Sunday. Once a month a bunch of drunken reprobates who clearly thrive on self-harm gather for yet another shitty trail organized (if only!) by a bunch of mismanagers who couldn’t arrange the proverbial piss-up in a brewery. This particular Sunday was no exception.
Summoned, after a mismanagement decision-making process that made even continental drift seem unduly hasty, to Hakuraku station, a substantial section of the pack assumed that the huge “H4” mark outside the nearby Doutor coffee shop marked the starting point and waited for the Hares to appear. No such luck. (With hindsight we should have seized that opportunity to disappear while the going was still good). When we finally twigged that we were supposed to follow what looked like trail arrows, we duly entered the scenic Shirahataike Park, to find the Hares gloating mightily at the prospect of inflicting infinite pain on us poor souls. The trail started as it was destined to go on, straight up a long flight of winding steps that might have inspired Led Zeppelin, and down the other side of the hill, where (surprise, surprise) the grass wasn’t any greener. That set the mood for the afternoon: a winding up-and-down course (remember that map) that took us through Kishine Park, past Kiunji temple and even afforded a view of the shinkansen tracks near Shin-Yokohama station. The only reason we were able to stagger back to home base before sundown was that, by his own admission, Safety Last had made a huge mistake and unwittingly cut out an enormous loop out of his original diabolical trail.
Why did I conclude that this episode proves that H4 is a bunch of masochists? From the simple fact that, after an afternoon of intense suffering, the assembled company actually agreed (I’m not making this up!) to allow the same two Hares to set another trail from the very same spot next month. Had Fullerair slipped something into the amber nectar? Were we suffering from collective short-term amnesia? Or do we all wear hair shirts, self-flagellate and spend our spare moments being whipped and thrashed? I can only leave the answer to your imagination.
There is, fortunately, a happy ending to this story. Our Oh My Dear Leader, having gotten wind of this outlandish plan, has cracked the whip (metaphorically speaking, of course) and made people see sense. We won’t have to troop back to Hakuraku for more punishment at the hands of those sadists; it will be onwards and upwards to Zushi next Sunday (18th October), where Sweetie and your totally objective scribe have a true delight in store for you.
On! On!
Crusader