Loose Threads...
Howdy. Allow me to introduce my Dawg, Catfish. That is not her Hash name, but she has one. More on that in a minute. I plan to digress. A lot.

Note that Catfish is one of very few dogs that can sit demurely with her feet crossed under 25 lbs. of BBQ without even begging, and she hashes commando (leashless). I found her Under A Bridge Downtown in Presidio, Texas, about the same time I met Twinkie up the Butt, aka Laura. I didn't know about Hashing then, and had to believe whatever Twinkie told me. She's in the photo below, standing on a star in Alpine, Texas, the day before her wedding to the infamous Mr. Spleen. That's not a Hash name, either, and it predates Mystery Men. I introduced them.

Anyway, the day I pulled the last wild louse off of my new canine, I went out to eat with my friend Tim, an ex-dreadlocked, crew-cut, bearded Goddamned Drunk paramedic raftguide from Terlingua, part time Presidio resident when on ambulance call. We were in the middle of the Godforsaken desert paradise, and as I scanned the menu, I was shocked to see catfish listed there, so I exclaimed, (strangely enough) "Catfish?!" just as Tim was asking me what I was gonna name my new puppy. He said, "Catfish?! That's a stupid name!" and being the defiant so-and-s0 that I am, it stuck. Tim went on to become an infamous smoke jumper, tobacco spitter, Old Crow swiller, and writer of country-western songs about drunkeness, debauchery, homosexuality, and necrophelia:

"Three days dead,
Stiff but not stinkin'
She don't worry 'bout my lyin' or my cussin' or my drinkin," etc...

or,

"Now here's the moral of the story
and you can serve it on a platter
If you can't tell the difference
Sometimes it just don't matter.
So don't you travel,
no don't you stra-a-ay
down the Hershey Highway"

He sang these songs and more at Twinkie's wedding. My apologies for any mistakes if you ever read this, Tim. Don't sue me.

So I met Laura (to me) in her role as Presidio's School Nurse and kids' Catholocism instructor, while I was teaching down there. Tim, Laura, Mr. Spleen, and I immediately began a series of Friday nights over the local border in Ojinaga, smoking cigars with the whores as they told stories about the bullet holes in the bar, and cast spells on lesser gringos. One day, after the quinceanera of the daughter of Blanca, one of our favorite prostitutes, we went bar hopping and there was droopy lettuce draped all over our favorite local ,The Bar Monterrey, or "Squirt" Bar, to us, because of the dominant soda advertisment painted on the building, and the passtime of the clientele. It was the kind of establishment with a tiled trough that drains around the base of the bar, so the patrons don't have to get up to piss.

The lettuce covered everything from the open cash register to the jukebox, to the frame of the portrait of the naked blue lady swimming in the muddy stream - very Star Trek. There were several glasses and jars filled with water and whole limes over the entrance and arranged throughout. The Ladies were unusually solemn that day, and we came in after a few tequilas, ready to cut up (knife throwing was standard entertainment). We tried our best to charm our friends with more cigars, but finally the jefa just looked at us and slowly shook her head. We left. I figure someone got killed there the night before, but I sure as hell wasn't gonna pry.

We rolled on down the street, hit a few lower-class spots, as well as the curandera shop for some preventative Snake Oil for the earlier bad ju ju, got our standard bottle of Presidente, and went back to Laura's (Twinkie's) place to dance the night away to Cosmic Thang. We always did. Mr. Spleen (aka her future husband Chuck) stripped down to his boxers and climbed up in a tree outside, just before the police arrived to quell the noise. Chuck was dangling from a weak branch like a sloth, trying not to laugh out loud, and almost fell on one of the cops, but they never saw him.

So, back to Catfish's Hash name. It is "CatDog". Equally as arbitrary as her Nerd Name. One of the last naming legacies of this year's H4 Religious Adviser, McPisser. He's been known for his judicious and humorous use of RA power in various namings, and this proclamation never even made it to the circle's the discussion stage. Of course, H4's circles aren't exactly known for their adherence to Robert's Rules, with our most common quote being "Shut the F*ck Up!!"... As it was, it shall be. When asked for a quote, CatDog wisely had no opinion on the name whatsoever.