Saying Goodbye

A couple weeks ago a group of us joined together to say goodbye to a very special colleague and friend - the ass hatchet. As some of you may remember, the ass hatchet was an important part of the Triathlon team, although his butt paralyzing powers led to his retirement from cycling and the world in general.

The ass hatchet was born in a small factory in southeast asia. He traveled across the continent with a couple dozen of his closest family members. Life across the ocean was tough for the small ass hatchet, as his rough edge kept him bouncing from bicycle to bicycle. In March of 2008 he joined his final bicycle, the Ghetto Greyhound. At first, it seemed that the ass hatchet had finally found the bike he so desparately wanted. But, after 35 km in the triathlon, something horrible happened, and the ass hatchet started to cut off circulation to Ben's legs. The day after of the triathlon, the ass hatchet was replaced by a less horrifically painful seat.

On Ben's last full day in the Yukon, we decided that it was time to properly lay the ass hatchet to rest. There were lots of ideas - a burial in the backyard garden, a cremation along the triathlon route, or a crucifixion on the power pole marking the triathlon turn around. There was one problem with each of these suggestions - as Tony so astutely observed, they did not involve power tools. It was decided that the only way to integrate power tools into a ridiculously over the top burial was to host a Viking burial complete with a burning funeral pyre.

While Tony and Ben worked on constructing a floating pyre, Lisa, Jen and I collected other important funeral items - basically champagne. Once the pyre was ready, we headed to Schwatka Lake for the ceremony.

Unfortunately, we forgot one important item - matches. Tony and I worked hard to get the pyre going with a pathetic bbq lighter. It took us a while, but eventually the pyre was lit.

Using a long piece of wood, we pushed the pyre out to sea and watched as it left this world in a glorious sea of chemically enhanced (thank you fire starter) flames.

As the seat slowly melted away, we enjoyed our bottle of champagne and a final day with our friend Ben on the shores of Schwatka lake.

Sierra posted this on Jul 25, 2008 from the outside | | permanent link