Half-Mind Weblog

To everyone who’s sick of me ranting about the hash list asshole: yeah, yeah, I’ll quit when I need glasses already!

I founded Stray Dog Responders Anonymous several years ago after repeatedly allowing myself to get sucked into pointless, destructive e-mail exchanges with a hasher who calls himself Stray Dog.  A number of other hashers joined, and some were actually cured of their addictions.

I thought I was too, but I fell off the wagon. I needed another 12-step program.

I’m now a member of Larry Responders Anonymous, and it’s working.  First, a word of explanation:

I no longer believe Larry McDowell (the person who calls himself Stray Dog), belongs to the same club the rest of us joined. He doesn’t stand for any sort of hashing I’d willingly be associated with. He’s so distanced himself from from the society of hashers that I can no longer recognize him as one. In my book, he doesn’t even rate a hash name.

Thinking of Mr. McDowell as a non-hasher who visits our e-mail forum in order to post hate mail and pick fights should make it easier to ignore him. Oh, mail from that guy? It’s just more spam. But belonging to SDRA gave him too much credit – it implicitly recognized him as a hasher, and in a perverse way made me more prone to respond to his negativity.

As an LRA member, however, when I see a poison pen message from Mr. McDowell and am tempted to try to respond I think “LRA – gee, L stands for Larry – fuck, I’m not gonna waste my time responding to a non-hasher.”

I hear you asking, “What are the 12 steps of LRA?”  Here they are:

The Official 12-Step Program of Larry Responders Anonymous

1. Admit that you are powerless over your addiction, that your life has become unmanageable.

• Larry’s words and actions are antithetical to the spirit of hashing, and as a good hasher, this infuriates me.
• I feel compelled to reason with Larry, to convince him of the error of his ways in spite of the fact many before me have conclusively proven that Larry cannot be reasoned with, let alone be convinced of anything whatsoever.
• I’ve fallen into an endless cycle of infuriation, response, additional infuriation, additional response, yet more infuriation, yet more response, ad infinitum.
• G help me . . . I’m a Larry Responder!

2. Believe that a Power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity.

• I recognize that not everyone feels the need to respond to Larry’s provocations.
• I recognize in turn that if others can remain sane in the face of Larry’s provocations, so can I.
• I can stop responding to Larry.

3. Decide to turn your will and your life over to the care of G.

• G founded the hash yet was content to be relatively unknown in life.
• G therefore was six times a hasher compared to any of us and twelve times a hasher compared to that egotistical blowhard Larry.
• I can never be G but I can be more like G.

4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.

• I am normal, rational, well-behaved, kind, and generally moral.
• My personal failing is my adverse reaction to someone who is abnormal, irrational, poorly-behaved, mean, and immoral.

5. Admit to G, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs.

• G, I am a Larry Responder. I failed to accept the fact that someone could be irredeemably fucked up, and I made him even more fucked up and in addition stirred the pot of unease on Hash-L by trying to make that person less fucked up.
• To myself: ditto.
• To whoever reads this: ditto.

6. Be entirely ready to have G remove all these defects of character.

• Um, exactly how will G do that? Does he reach into my throat and pull them out, or what?
• I don’t want to get into anything kinky here, even if it is with G.

7. Humbly ask G to remove your shortcomings.

• See above.
• Please be gentle.

8. Make a list of all persons you have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.

• That would be the tender-hearted readers of Hash-L who know Larry is an evil presence in our midst but don’t want to point out the obvious because it might cause a disturbance in the fucking force or something.
• I have also harmed Larry by inflaming his paranoia and self-righteousness.
• I have harmed myself by getting into stupid pissing contests with Larry.

9. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

• Dear tender-hearted readers of Hash-L, I’m sorry I was so gauche as to point out the obvious. Now that I know how much it upsets you I promise not to do it again.
• Dear Larry, there is literally nothing I can say (down to and including such inoffensive phrases as “on-on,” “good morning,” and “hello”) that you won’t misinterpret, adding additional dementia to your dementia, so please pretend I haven’t said anything. Yeah, like that’ll work . . .
• Dear Self, I promise not to draw you into any more pissing contests with Larry.

10. Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong promptly admit it.

• Larry really yanks my chain, but I don’t think I’m wrong to have a chain that he can yank.
• I still have these urges to respond to Larry, but I know that would be wrong, so I won’t.
• If I do completely lose my head and respond to Larry, I will admit my mistake and take the consequences like a true hasher.

11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve your conscious contact with G, praying only for knowledge of His will for you and the power to carry that out.

• What’s important to G is that I cleave to the spirit of hashing and do what I can to keep that spirit alive.
• Larry distracts me from that goal, therefore it is G’s will that I ignore Larry.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, try to to carry this message to other Larry Responders, and to practice these principles in all your affairs.

• Hey, everybody, responding to Larry sucks you into an unhashlike vortex of hurt feelings, recriminations, and doubt.
• Join Larry Responders Anonymous today and regain your sanity!

© 2004 – 2008, Flying Booger. All rights reserved.

About Flying Booger  Hash House Harrier, man about town.