Well, I didn't think I was going to be able to go to the RinkUnion this year, but through the magic of this thing called a "telephone", I have already been.

It was everything I expected and more.

For those who don't know, the RinkUnion is very loud and has rather poor reception. Everyone is late showing up for everything, and people's voices are very different from what you expected. For example, the eight people who said "hi" to me when I first got called all sound exactly the same -- exactly like eight people all saying "hi" at once.

Lynette sounds a little different from the other people because she actually talked to me. She told me that I was supposed to get on the next flight to the RU and that she would pitch in $5 to help cover the costs. Since it was American money, it was almost enough to pay for the flight, too.

I found out that everyone is tormenting Sam by throwing pennies on the ground for him to pick up, because he has an obsessive-compulsive disorder that requires him to pick up every penny he sees. Everyone there is evil and intentionally brought lots of pennies in order to exploit Sam's handicap for their own amusement. SHAME ON YOU ALL. Then I started thinking about how if I had gone, I could have brought my giant bottle full of CANADIAN pennies, which would have been even more evil, because Canadian pennies are only good for holding up wobbly table legs. But then I realized that if I was there, I would be keeping my pennies and trying to grab all the American pennies everyone else was throwing around, because if I got enough American pennies, I'd be rich when I came back to Canada.

Also, Sosiqui has been tormented with numerous monkey jokes/gifts/comments. And the weekend has barely started.

While I was on the phone with Sosi, they were waiting for the rest of everyone to show up for the 10:00 starting time, and Sosi told me when Sam and Leen and Jaguar and Elly and famous and someone else I don't remember (probably several people) came in, and Sam gave Sosi a surprise hug, and since I was on the phone with her at the time, it felt just like I was getting a hug from Sam, which RULED because Sam is still TEH BETS WEBMAESTRO EVAR and I still gush about him even though I'm more restrained about it now.

So anyway, next year I'm going to ask Sam to mail me all the pennies he picked up this year so I can afford to buy a plane ticket and figure out if those eight people really do all have the same voice.

Don "This message sponsored by Ria, who paid for the phone call" Monkey