This story starts at around midday, where I had Indian food for lunch. It would precipitate gas cramps that would later foil any attempt at running very fast to save my life. If I were living in the wild, Indian food would have gotten me eaten by a bear or a sabre-tooth tiger.

Tonight was Journey to the End of the Night. It was also, coincidentally, Gameboi. I'd made various plans so that should something be lame, or I get caught early or I be out mysteriously late, I'd have options. This meant looking club-ready while being able to sprint like a crazyperson and not be stinky, and to have some sort of way of getting back home should things end post-BART. All of this put together is a feat, really, and it meant that I'd be running around with baking soda under my armpits in a nice shirt and pants that were too tight and the point is I AM GOOD AT PLANNING OKAY.

I was late because my mom made me eat dinner, but Meredith had already saved us a spot in line where we could sign waivers saying that if we got hit by cars it was our own damn fault. There were a crapton of people so the thing didn't start until 8:00. We spent the 2 hours beforehand wandering around looking for bathrooms. These were 2 hours well spent. We also fret over the maps, decided that our code word for "shit I think I see a chaser" would be "hey, let's go to MUNI." and that "OH MY GOD RUN THERE IS A CANNIBAL WEREWOLF RIGHT THERE" would be "hey, let's go to BART." We also decided that when the time came, I would always split right and she would split left. Then some guy gave a speech and the horn sounded and everyone started running like a crazyperson towards checkpoint 1B. Meredith and I had decided that we would try and be in the middle of the crowd because it would probably be some other goober that would get caught should a chaser charge into the group. We also decided to go on the most direct route since it would probably be the fastest. These were both not incredible ideas, because the crowd parted and stampeded backwards whenever it saw a chaser, and the chasers loooooooved to be on the most direct route.



We followed the running mob to Folsom where a chaser casually chilled at an intersection. He'd cheated and gotten there by motorcycle first, so we all dove down some random street that eventually took us under the freeway in a very large and inconvenient detour that landed us up in kind of a pretty part of SF. The presence of the chaser had begun to stress me out, and I started getting Indian food gas cramps that I couldn't deal with because we were wandering amongst so many people. We split up into two groups, one that took the high road that was basically a freeway ramp, and another that went the low road, the smart option with lots of escape possibilities. Everyone got to the place eventually. There Meredith and I saw Andrew, who neither of us had remembered existed since high school. Then I asked some lady to give me a stamp and she made me do push-ups that weren't too bad because it was on a hill and I didn't have to be all horizontal against gravity. ahahahahahahaha.



We went back down to cross the treacherous bridge entrance and started walking on Howard because there seemed to be the most direct route, which was, again, a mistake since evil chaser people had begun to catch people and there were now sentries all the fuck over the place. Meredith and I saw someone at an intersection and hid behind a bush until we saw them moving away. Then we followed them for another block or two before another assload of chasers appeared across the street. We met up transiently with some other group and they said something like "we should cut across Yerba Buena park!" to which someone else said "no you dummy, that's the opposite direction of where we want to go." Meredith and I ditched these clowns and detoured to the secret checkpoint. On the way over, Meredith thought she saw someone in red and almost dove into oncoming traffic.

When we arrived at the secret checkpoint, we discovered that it was a dance-off where the winners would get a "get out of jail free card." Who won? THIS GUY. (if I hadn't I would have cracked some skulls.) We then decided to detour onto various sketchy-ass roads near Mission where I almost lost Meredith to a gamut of crackheads and poor people that were clawing at the hem of her skirt and saying things like "You're dressed too nice to be here, can you help me buy a burger?" She made me hold her arm then and this conveniently shielded parts of our blue ribbons from onlookers, so I was on board. At one point we passed a club in an otherwise deserted alley and we commented on how cool/scary that was. We then trundled past some more hobos and ended up at checkpoint 2 without much more of a hitch. It was pretty rad because some surly woman yelled at us and made us contribute to a spraypaint mural.



Then came the clusterffffuuuu leg of the race, where the crapload of embittered chasers began lurking with increasing malice around every corner between 2 and 3 and 4 and 5. By then we were probably in the mid-late pack and all the chasers who had been converted were feeling angry about being caught around checkpoint 2. We went down Howard towards 8th scouting out where would be a good spot to leave the safe zone. SURPRISE. THERE WAS NONE. As soon as we went up 6th towards Market some lady leapt out of an alley and said "HEY!" and then I loudly declared that we were in a safe zone so she needed to calm her tits. She then said "oh, so where does the safe zone end?" and I think I lied and told her one more block up. Then we went to the outer perimeter on 8th where there was a huddled group of women standing at a corner looking afraid and this gave me more gas cramps. There were chasers at all the intersections so we decided to double back a bit onto 7th again even though someone at 8th tried to make a break for it and was doing a good job distracting. On the way, I lurked uncomfortably closely behind these hipsters that weren't playing and they gave me funny looks. We eventually made a stealthy break towards market. This was also not a great idea. There was a group of chasers waiting at the top of the civic center bart, and we stealthily walked right by them even though a hobo kept whistling to get the chasers' attention. Down in the system there was a chaser buying a muni ticket. We stealthily walked by him too, and proceeded up some stairs to cross the street into the civic center plaza.

I thought to myself, "This is a terrible place to be. There is no peoplecover and there are trees and shit and oh my god we are going to die." and by die I meant "get caught" because getting caught is death, really, but we managed to cross it without a hitch and when we were standing in front of city hall I said very loudly, "uh, isn't this the checkpoint?" It wasn't. There was just some sort of ceremony going on that we weren't invited to. We then spent about 3 minutes being highly distressed over the fact that they didn't label what street the civic center was on.

"Let's be smart and go up a block so we can circumvent any lurky chasers," we decided, so we went up to McAllister, where a bus was beginning to depassenger itself.

Meredith said "OH SHIT A CHASER" and began to run.

I hadn't seen him yet.

The chaser responded with an "OH SHIT!" of his own and began chasing us.

I ran fast despite feeling bloated and ugly and he caught Meredith but I waved my card at him and told him to stand still for 60 seconds. He said "But, I caught you too now and..." and then I told him to hush and we ran very quickly. Then I stepped in poo because I was looking over my shoulder instead of on the floor like I usually do. I noticed this as we were gasping behind a catering truck that was parked in the backside of city hall and that I was breathing cheesey-catered food and dog-poo air in great gulps. Not good times, world, not good times.

We decided that nowhere was safe and that we'd best just get to Gough as fast as possible. We were also exhausted and addled and not in any state to be making good decisions. So we did that, and didn't check around the corner as soon as we turned it.

Robert: *Eye contact* Hi.
Woman with red armband: Hi, are you guys playing the game?
Robert: Uh.
Meredith: *STARTS RUNNING*

And basically Meredith ran a bit and I ran like a crazy bird and I began hearing TWO sets of footsteps behind me and that was just the worst news ever, so I ran down about 2 blocks and then dove across the street across traffic and tried to hide behind a porto potty unsuccessfully, and then my gas cramps got the best of me and I didn't think of just farting all over my chaser and my phone started to ring and I knew Meredith had been caught. So, I stopped, almost vommed I was so out of breath, and handed my blue band over to my chaser. I'd been caught by a kid in a fedora named Dalton, who hadn't even seen me until about 10 seconds ago when a second chaser had gotten Meredith, and the first chaser had begun to drop off from exhaustion. Really? Really.

I was done-ish. Meredith told me that she'd doubled back after she was chased and tried to hide behind a wall unsuccessfully when she got caught, and together we hobbled over to the checkpoint and thought about what we wanted to do next. She said "Do you really want to go to Gameboi?" and the answer was yes, and I'd been hinting at it all night, and we were basically right there, but I said "No, it's okay" because I smelled and I probably looked like I got hit by a bus and she didn't seem to be that into going and it'd be unchivalrous to say "GO HOME BY YOURSELF." So I watched her eat a gyro from some restaurant in Hayes Valley and then we went home around 11.