Sunday, January 29, 2006

....And today my voice is going

So I was rolling down Delancey st. in a shopping cart with my legs dangling off of the side... wearing sheep print PJs... waving a disembodied mannequin leg in the air.
And that was the surreal conclusion to yesterday's bizarre adventure.

Six hours prior I was standing in the back of a pitch-dark Uhaul truck with nine other crazy motherfuckers and two stolen shopping carts, getting high on the gas fumes. Screaming "woohoo".
And that was the surreal beginning to yesterday's bizarre adventure.

Imagine the looks of bewilderment on pedestrians' faces when ten people stumbled out of a CARGO TRUCK onto the sidewalk in front of fort greene park with two pimped-out shopping carts. The occasion: the idiotarod ('06). The configuration: each team to a shopping cart, five persons idiots to a team. The requirements: steal your own damn shopping cart. Find a way to tether yourself and your teammates to it. (*Themed costumes and the practice of sabotage encouraged.)

(And now, in chronological order, the story of yesterday's bizarre adventure.)
The original plan was actually to haul the shopping cart into the subway station and onto the subway (nothing that every john and jane hobo don't do on a daily basis) but we aborted that plan the minute we learned one of my teammate's neighbors had assembled a team of his own and rented a cargo vehicle to transport team and cart to the starting line in fort greene. We raided their Uhaul. And so, it came to be that the ten of us, along with our (elaborately embellished) stolen shopping carts, rode as CARGO in a Uhaul truck to the starting line, our cell phones and camera flashes being the only available sources of light. EXHILERATING. You have not LIVED until you've done this! Because:
1 - windowless motor vehicle
2 - SEATLESS motor vehicle. This means four walls, boxiness, bare-bones. We were riding in what was essentially a box. A box. HAHA!
3 - total darkness!!
4 - bumpiness
5 - fumes
It was enough to make me squeal in delight.
loading & boarding into the Uhaul
The others seemed to think of it as some perilous journey into the Unknown, and I very nearly called them all prisses. Instead I woohoo'ed myself to death, like a mob of frat boys on spring break. (No, not one, but an entire MOB of frat boys.)

So the task at hand was to get from Ft. Greene Park to Manhattan Park. Can we say... TAILGATING PARTY ON THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE?? woot! In the process: hit up The Delancey, down a drink as quickly as possible (& stagger across the finish line buzzed). Valuable information gathered: the width of the manhattan bridge walkway will accomodate two shopping carts. So now I know. And now you know.

Some carts were abandoned at the finish line, we thought it a marvellous idea to jump in. Various people pushed various other people up and down the slopes, occasionally ramming into each other with (playful) intention. ...Then we thought it a marvellous idea to leave in the shopping cart.


Minutes prior to my boarding the shopping cart. Impromptu party at the finish line. Seen here, the girl I was to end up rolling through the LES with (who knew two grown people could fit into a shopping cart?), and the guy who was to end up pushing us. Later on, he also donned a cape that someone abandoned in a cart, and somehow obtained matching shorts that he put on over his pants. Other post-race artifacts acquired along the way (right outside manhattan park, in fact) include the lower body of a mannequin.... which we, with great difficulty, stripped the jeans off of and dismembered further. (And to each, an amputated mannequin leg!) The girl shown above called several of her friends on her cell phone to say, "hi. how are you? I thought you might like to know I am rolling down delancey street in a shopping cart with my friend -- both of us -- holding mannequin legs, and my boyfriend is pushing us." (Had I brought my own cell phone, I would most certainly have done the same. In fact I may have called you.) What a spectacle we had to have been; all who bore witness either deliberately pretended not to notice or looked on in bemusement.
Some little kids heckled us.

I was loitering on a corner in the east village outside a pizzeria (STILL in pajamas, mind you. that's all I had on me/with me!) with my fellow shopping cart passenger and mannequin leg-proprietor after one of the wheels on the cart broke en route to ave. B and 11th... giggling and staggering as if I were high or drunk or something or another even though I was neither. Several passersby looked at us curiously and prompted us for explanations during the time that we stood there. One of them was accompanied by a british friend, and looked vaguely familiar. I said, "is your name Sarah?"
...And that's how I met ultragrrrl.
(after which I said -- sorry, screamed -- "OH SHIT, THAT WAS ULTRAGRRRL" to my companions while she continued on her merry way down the street. Still easily within earshot.)

And it was all fun and games until I realized I had to get back to brooklyn in sleepwear. Ultimately, it came down to me trekking to Union Sq. (to catch the subway) from alphabet city in a sheep-print pajama set, the very picture of ridicule. Fortunately my state of whiskey-induced intoxication dulled my capacity to care at all.

In all my enthusiasm, I screamed all the livelong day until my throat was raw and my voice was hoarse by day's end; nevertheless, my inner child was verrrry satisfied.

extraneous visuals/articles of interest
starting line festivities
team
(more where that came from)

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