Droogie Race

HHJH just ran a bit about A Clockwork Orange and it reminded me of a story:

My wife and friends and I were at a sci-fi convention years back and entered the First Annual 1 Mile Fun Run. Except we entered as Droogies from A Clockwork Orange. 6 fully-costumed Droogies, a guy dressed as a cow, a seriously drunken fellow and one serious runner (the guy that organized the run).

It was a mile run and quite a few of the non-participating sci-fi attendees showed up to watch the race. As it was only a one mile run, even out of shape, hung over and dressed like Stanley Kubrik characters, it shouldn't have taken us more than 15 minutes to "run" 1 mile ... except, being Droogies, we HAD to cheat! So about 100 yards away from the start/finish line, beyond view of the spectators, we, the Droogs, had a car waiting for us, filled with beer/whiskey. All but the serious runner and the cow jumped in the car and drove off to the half-mile mark. And there we parked and partied. In a couple of minutes the real (and only) runner showed up, angry because nobody was taking this seriously. We told him we were taking our drinking seriously, besides, the cow came hoofing over the hill several minutes after that. We ALL got drunk. For about a half hour.

We'd forgotten about the spectators at the start/finish line. Ooops. But they hadn't forgotten about us, got worried, and sent out a search/rescue party that found 6 drunk Droogs, a REALLY drunken previously drunken fellow, an inebriated cow and one tipsy, pissed-off runner. So the search party joined us ... yes, they sent out ANOTHER search party to search for us AND the earlier search party. The second search party met the same fate as the first one and got drunk with us too.

We all decided to offer the remaining spectators an exciting end of the race. So EVERYBODY piled into and onto the car, drove back up the hill, just barely out of site and then had the car chase us Droogs up the hill and off into an adjacent parking lot past, but not OVER the finish line. We never finished the race. The cow and the runner staged a wind sprint to the finish. The cow won. The drunk was passed-out in the back seat of the car. And the real runner? Well, his shorts were cute, but he was bested by Bessie.

The First Annual Fun Run was also the Last Annual Fun Run.

Damn Droogies spoiled ALL the fun by cheating. The organizer/runner refused to speak to any of us the rest of the weekend. I mean, getting beaten by a drunken, out of shape cow is likely not the highlight of any runner's career.

Engh, f@@k 'em if he can't take a joke.