So now begins the long drudgery of trying to remember the key events of that trip.  They have been told countless times around the bar or brunch.  Remembering events 2 years later is often tough, dare I say, impossible, especially when subjects involved were completely innebriated.  Well, I will attempt for everyone's sake.  The story goes something like this.


I knew I needed to go back to Ottawa.  I had missed the previous year (breaking my streak at 4 years in a row).  I did not want to miss another year.  Events from the previous year were discussed over and over and it seemed to be the same Tom Foolery, with a bit of a Handsome Pete Mix.  He had done a great job securing enough players (more than enough) to the point where some of the more degenerates of the group felt left out.  Seems they had drank most of the weekend and made themselves unavailable for play.  This is where the story differs.  Those players swear that they were left off the playing list for personal reasons.  Either way, guys went, but didn't play.  So they came to me to revive the old Washington Handsome Overweight Rugby Side.  Finding players was difficult.  We found a good dozen immediately, however, finding the last ones would be difficult.  We had players coming from Richmond, Ireland (Snatch....who was on double duty with the USSR), Scotland and Australia (via Albuquerque), and of course Washington DC. 

I did a quick jersey design (Viagra would be our mock sponsor) and the team was on target.  There was some quibbling about stealing players from the USSR, however, in the end, the USSR was just fine, and we would still need to find a handful of players in Canada.  No sooner had our letters gone out, then we received word that our Idiot Brothers from Ottawa could fill some of our vacancies.  We now had a full 15.  The gang in Canada was pleased to hear of my return to the tournament and I was excited to see them all again.

One player who had agreed to go on the trip in May, had disappeared.  I had no way of reaching him and was nervous we were back to 14 players.  As luck would have it, I received a phone call from him the night before we left asking what time he should arrive at my house.  We were ready.  With a large contigent of our players from DC itself, we were to begin at my house in Alexandria and pick them up on the way near the campus of GWU. 

Of course we were running late.  Boz forgot his passport at his house (because he forgot to pack before going to bed....he actually had stayed up all night watching Lord of the Rings.  We were off in a Van Boz had rented, as well as, a Large car that Ozzy Paul had picked up.  In his vehicle were Booger and a teammate (college kid from JMU).  This is where the memory gets fuzzy. I believe his name was Chris.  Sorry.

We then loaded Snatch, Tommy, Boz, myself, Sully, Lumpy, and Miller Lite into the van.  I handed out tour kits (Grand Poobah hats, Elvis Sunglasses and jerseys to the team).  We headed north and were maybe 5 minutes out of DC when beers made their rounds in the van.  It was approximately one hour later when Boz realized that he shouldn't be driving on 1 hour of sleep and handed duties off to Lumpy.  We assured Lumpy that he would be relieved in NY and he agreed to forego drinking until the afternoon.

Near the Pennsylvania Border Ozzy Paul hit the back of the van at a stop light.  This sent the group into hysterics, as the group was pretty drunk by this point.  Side stories of Tommy drunk dialing all his friends at 10 AM, wanting to piss on Ghettysburg National Cemetary (it was the 141 anniversary of the battle on the very day we were driving by it) and Miller Lite Micro Managing his interns in their office, would all be left to your imagination.  The story starts to fire up however, as we are deciding which exit to take north to I-81.  We end up taking the wrong exit.  Ozzy Paul had called and said we want I 281.  I told Lumpy......281.  He heard me say "To 81" so he took the 81 exit.  We exit and realize our mistake, but it is too late.  Lumpy flys through an EZ Pass toll (we dont have EZ Pass) and we quickly flip a U turn and are back on the interstate (behind Ozzy's car though).  They agree to meet up with us farther north when we catch up.  They are to pick up Ozzy's Scottish buddy.

We continue down the PA Turnpike....and I tell the crowd, "after this bridge, we want that exit."  They fly over the bridge, but no one takes the exit.  I am a bit drunk and now confused.  Was my instructions not clear.  Did I not just say to take the exit.  So I say, "I think we wanted that last exit."  No one says anything.  We continue.  Now I am sure we have missed the exit so I repeat, "We missed that exit back there."  No one replies.  Is my mouth not working.  I swear I just said we missed the exit.  Finally I turn down the music, and say, "Guys we missed the exit."  They say, "We thought you were kidding."  WE do another EZ Pass U Turn and are on our way back to the exit we needed.  Now we are a good 45 minutes behind Ozzy.  He calls again and we inform him of our mistakes and tell him to continue and we will catch up soon.

We finally have to make a pit stop at a Rest Stop.  Bathroom break kitty is running ($5 for first piss, $10 for the next person that needs to pee, $15, $20...so forth.)  Someone coughs up $5 and we stop.  We are making general nuisance of ourselves when a film crew arrives to interview travelers on the 4th of July weekend. They KNOW they need to interview us and Boz steps up.  We are all wearing our Poobah hats, Elvis glasses and our jerseys.  Boz speaks to the lady reporter (which slightly irks me considering I had been interviewed 2 of my 4 trips to Ottawa.)  Alas, Boz speaks well and it goes fairly smoothly, other than Tommy, that is.  The reporter asks what we are doing to be safe this 4th.  Tommy replies "we have condoms."  CUT.  Take TWO:  What are you doing on the roads to be safer?  Boz steps up and says, "We are taking it slow. We have decided it is best to not distract the driver and be careful.  I see a beer can that has fallen out of the van and I slowly nudge it behind the tire.  I quickly remember when Lumpy took the exit and the numerous empty beer cans thrown at his head.  Take it slow and not distract the driver.  RIGHT.

We jump back in the van and continue to drink.  Boz and I are getting pretty drunk.  Tommy and Snatch have had to stop drinking to sober up enough not to die.  Various events along the way continue to entertain our group, including discussion of mormons, anal sex ("back door:  No babies! our mantra for the trip), and how many chicks we were gonna tag while in Canada.

We arrive at the border (finally catching up to Ozzy Paul (2 hours after her reached the border) and fly through customs.  We pick up Canadian beer at the Duty Free and some supplies in the town near the fields.  We arrive and notice that the USSR had not saved us a spot to put up tent.  It really wasn't their job to do that, however, it would have been nice.  We haul our supplies 4.7 miles across the fields to near the end and start setting up.  Beers are flowing, the guys are ready to meet the ladies, and everything is going right on schedule. 

The USSR was at their Strip Club ritual and we mostly chatted to friends from years past on Canadian teams.  When darkness fell, we made our way, adorned in our kits, to the bar and had a pretty good throw down of beers.  We ran into the East Coast Harlots and the USSR guys and we all enjoyed the evening.  The bar finally closed and we went back to the tents to cook around the fire and drink more high octane beer.  Mo, from NOVA Women, joined us and we stayed up for a long time considering life.  (or being drunk.)  The scottish guy (again...name is fuzzy) decided to pop jiffy pop pop corn.  It just burned...broke open in the fire.  Pop corn was flying everywhere...I found myself crashing in Mo's tent and woke up in the morning to the oh, so not good feeling that Ottawa can provide you.  It was 7 AM.  It is tough to sleep in in Ottawa. 

We rallied our troops and made our way to food line.  Totally was tough to eat, but I knew it was necessary.  We put our kits on, found a couple whors to replace the last minute bails we had, and sat and waited for the Toronto Lions to show up.  One of our whores asked who we were playing.  I told him the Lions and he said, "oh....we forfeited.....the three of us are the only members that made it."  SUCCESS!  WHORS first win ever.  The rest of the day we drank beer and talked about how cool it would be if we won the championship.  We lost both matches and started seriously putting a hurt on the beer and liqour in our campsite. 

Kangaroo Court, Presided by Ozzy Paul, was well done with mass amounts of beer being chugged, gags being handed out, and punishments be handed down.  No one was safe.  Snatch and Norm would be brought on charges of playing for two teams (only to acknowledge their support...they were cheered) and Boz and Miller Light were crushed due to their many crimes.  Lumpy and Tommy were the worst off.  Lumpy had to drink an ungodly amount of beer for his driving mistakes, not to mention "not" drinking on the trip up (as if he could).  he was stumbling around with a plunger all night stick it to girls breasts.

I fell hard.  After two litres of Sambuca I felt, well, no...I couldn't feel a thing...except the burning of my face (it was bright red.)  The photos are really the only evidence I have of the night.  I wore a girls thong on my face at one point.  I also remember writing Gay Game on the back of a USSR member.  The player in question had attacked one of the poobah hats on Miller Lite Friday night.  To pay him back I vandalized his body paint.  The USSR wore body paint saying that glowed in the dark.  This player put "A Game"  I quickly wrote on his back without him noticing "G-A-Y" game.....we laughed. 

I stumbled out of the bar with Mo, two beers in each hand......and looked at the debauchery around me.  People hooking up in the hot tub, beer cans everywhere, someone was puking around the corner.....and like a soldier that has seen enough battle I threw my swords (Beers) down and screamed, enough.  That is where I black out.

I woke up in Mo's tent the next day with a slight rememberance of dispparaging Mamoo and the Beer gods and beg for forgiveness.  Threw down some beers and was back on the road to recovery.

During the drive home we hit a bird...that stook out of the grill......quite nasty.  WE then pulled over for lunch (30 minutes away from the pitch...to which Miller Lite complained that props eat too much."  Lumpy was loaded by this point and wanted to desperately talk to these gentlemen wearing Hell's Angels vests.  He approached them and said, "are you guys really in Hell's Angels?"  They reply yes.  He says, "You don't look that scary."  

"so did he get away? "
"No...they caught up with him a mile or so down the road and slit his throat.......can you pull over I have to piss."

They didn't find us.  We did pull over in NY and have a kid come up and say, "MR, you have a dead bird hanging out of your hood."  I replied, "SO!  I don't care."  I heard his mother saying to him, when we passed, "What do you mean he said he didn't care?"  We made it back to DC by midnight that night...and went home for a long overdue quiet night of sleep.

Ottawa.  Great time.

I would love to show pictures, however, they are all MIA.  I will check with fellow players to see if anyone still has any.