FARTing Around DC

Saturday was a day of tough decisions for me. I had the chance to participate in two worthwhile opportunities, and I had a hard time choosing. For weeks I had seen the posters for the Walk for the Homeless. I had plans on participating, but a late-night session of Gears of War 2 with the clan made rising for the 9 a.m. start time a little too daunting a task.

Luckily, I had a fallback, which was proposed to me by my good friend Kristin. Her friend is on the board of FART, a nonprofit comprised of friends who were tired of the intramural leagues here in DC. I know what they mean, because after a few seasons of intramural soccer and flag football, those leagues were nothing but college grads and men in their 30s trying to beat the shit out of each other. The fun was 100% removed, and it was all about winning and if you could do it degrading your opponent, all the better. Hey folks, you're not earning a paycheck on that field, and you're not getting any chicks breaking another person's leg, either, so quit with the uber-macho shite.

Anyway, back to FART. Or, Faux Athletic Recreational Tournaments. The point is to have fun on weekends and also benefit a worthy cause. The event I did was a DC Hide and Seek. They've done bizarro things like Connect Four tournaments and stuff like that, but this was their first big-scale event.

My team, the Nickels (don't ask), were given a printout of clues to the location of FART members hiding around DC. We followed the clues and found our hidden folk hiding in all sorts of places (Hirschorn Museum, an ice rink, a cafe in Dupont Circle, outside a Best Buy in Columbia Heights and many more).

In the end, the Nichels prevailed, coming in first place. I expected nothing less, since Kristin and I attacked the contest with a fervor worthy of Terry Tate. Our team had the fewest members (four) but we would not be denied. Kristin, Maggie (both pictured), myself and a certain person who is dead to us because he went Benedict Arnold on us during the awards ceremony, we all stepped up and kicked some Hide and Seek ass. In addition, FART collected enough entry fees and donated coats to clothe 8 people and feed 24 for the holidays, so we had fun and helped out some people, which was great.

Not sure what FART has in store for the future, but I hope they continue to push the activities. There are some angry people here that could use some light-hearted fun that benefits someone other than themselves.