ACT THREE
SUNDAY

I can't imagine anyone still cares about my as-it-happens running report (which is only eight days late), but here's day three anyway.

Sunday morning I got up at Satan o'clock because, interestingly enough, my mom had to go sing to God. She's on the praise team at our church, and she had to get there early to practice, so she took me with her, and then she dropped me off at the train station, and I took the train down to San Diego, and gremlinn and flyingcats and Cynthia (and supposedly ahmoacah, too, but I don't remember her existing until we bought sandwiches about a half hour later) picked me up, and we drove to Seaport Village, and we got there like a minute before the rest of the peons in our group, and it was all 733t, even though approximately 187% of San Diego is under construction.

The group met at the entrance to Seaport Village, which I guess is a little shopping place that features many things characteristic to San Diego, such as tiny restaurants, cold winds, and a insanely high number of shops. We stood around at the entrance, and Sam made me pose with my briefcase like in my RinkAlbum picture, and everyone cheered and gave me money. We all broke off into groups, and then many of us met about an hour and a half or so at a big carousel that only cost a dollar! Me and Cynthia and flyingcats and Lynette and gremlinn and Sosiqui and ahmoacah and Ria went on it, but Marvin stayed off, so we called him a wuss and threw stones at him.

While he was at the hospital recovering from his injuries, the rest of us went into this store that was filled with shiny things, and Lynette's brain exploded. We wandered around some more, eventually making our way into a magnet store (except for gremlinn, who didn't want all his programming to be wiped out). Ria and Lynette bought a shot glass that said "World's Greatest Bar" (I don't think they noticed the "Bar") and a sticker that said "Shut up!". They fixed the sticker so it said "Shot up" and stuck it on the glass, intending to give it away to the winner of a future sand castle contest.

We all met together again, and people started to climb this big tree out front, most notably Brunnen-G, who made it up to the top all with the rappelling gear she had in her 733t utility belt. A helicopter flew overhead to pick her up and carry her off into the closing credits, but we made her come down anyway.

After that we all split up into different cars and drove to the beach. Stephen kept going to the wrong place: he drove down some crazy back alley, and then he drove to the wrong beach, and then he drove to the wrong parking lot. He blames this on Sam's directions, but it was really because he kept hitting on me.

We got to the beach, which turned out to be mostly grass for some reason. There were picnic tables all over the grass, and we grabbed a couple and claimed them by piling all our junk and Stephen on them. Some of us played Frisbee with these w1ck4d 733t Frisbees flyingcats brought; one was a RinkWorks Frisbee and one was Planet Earth (and other tourist traps) Frisbee. The other one was big and fat and non-RinkWorks-related. (Technically, since Whammo didn't make them, none of them were Frisbees, but "flying disc" is about the stupidest phrase in the entire planet.) Several of us threw the Frisbees for a total of ninety-seven hours, and it was fun the ENTIRE TIME. Then some people played volleyball, but I chose not to, because I am a wuss.

Some people sat around and talked about stuff. I didn't write down what everyone said, but if you really want to know, talk to Ellmyruh. She'll be publishing the first twelve volumes of her RinkUnion report sometime by winter. Dave kept calling me a hippie, even though he's the one who voted for Nader, so I totally beat him up again.

After that several people went into the ocean, despite being fully dressed (although I guess it's better than being fully undressed). I heard rumors that Ellmyruh wore a bikini, but I didn't look to verify it, because even though she's only like three feet tall she can still completely kick my ass.

Shortly after people came back from the ocean (it was their first time in the ocean for some of them), John Malkovich showed up, claiming his name was "Gabe". He gave some Pixie Sticks to Lynette, so he was arrested for trying to kill us all. Beasty barbecued some burgers and they were quite 733t. Thank you, Beasty.

(No one ever did build a sand castle, except for these people who weren't there with us who built this ridiculously cool one, so they gave the SHOT UP shot glass to Stephen. I can't think of a joke to go along with that, but then again I'm not even sure it needs one.)

After that we took about six thousand group photos. This was bad, because I am hideous, but at least they were kind of far away shots, so hopefully I didn't come out too well. After the group pictures, people started taking individual pictures of each other. Faux Pas pulled his pants down and everyone photographed him.

Dave was standing in a manly position posing for a picture, and Stephen, overcome with emotion, ran up and hugged him. Dave is also skilled in the art of man-love, so the two grappled and groped each other for a few minutes while a curiously high number of people took pictures. At some point people thought it looked like wrestling, so other people tried their hands at it. Lynette and Cynthia wrestled each other, and no clear winner emerged (Cynthia claims this is because a rule of "no hair-pulling" was set). After that, Sam sic'ed everyone on Brunnen-G, and she soundly thumped them all. Sam decided then that it was his duty to take her down himself, apparently forgetting that this is Brunnen-G. Ashamed by his defeat, Sam decided to fight with his brother Jaguar (who, earlier, made fun of me for saying "Jag-wire" even though that is the normal human way to pronounce it). I don't know who won that fight, because I was too busy looking at the pictures of Cynthia and Lynette.

After that everyone packed up and left. I think Sam stole someone's towel. We went back to the motel, where we crowded into Cynthia and flyingcats and Matthew and Maryam and Beasty's room. Faux Pas said we could take home his RinkChat card game decks, so me and Cynthia each snatched a deck, and then thirty people reading this post blasted me for saying "me and Cynthia" instead of "Cynthia and I". Upstairs Brunnen-G was applying goth makeup to Stephen, and it totally fit him to a T. I have a newfound respect for Brunnen-G now. After that I went wandering around looking for my mom, who was supposed to pick me up, but she wasn't there, so I went back to the room to find that even more people (including Stephen, whose makeup had unfortunately been removed) had crowded into there. I had to sit on the edge of a bed leaning against a wall to fit. Since I would be going home soon, Stephen gave me his cell phone number and told me to make Darien or gremlinn (who, living in San Diego, had already gone home) call him when I got home if they were in chat. Darien was, and I made him call Stephen. According to later reports, Stephen called Darien gay. My theory is that Stephen did not -tell- Darien he was gay, but rather -asked- him if he was in an attempt to hit on him.

And so I conclude this report, ending with, naturally, a vaguely humorous attempt at a Stephen-is-gay joke characteristic of people several years younger than I am. Let us now look back over the past three reports: I get there, cool stuff happens, I go home, I come back, cool stuff happens, I go home, I come back, cool stuff happens, I go home. This is the most basic uncluttered summary of RU3 you could ask for. So, next time you hear someone praising Sam for how cool this RinkUnion was, correct them. Inform them who really made the magic happen:

-Eric Sleator
Sun 18 Aug A.D. 2002