(and the very worst con yet).

Horrorshow, Horrorshow, me little droogies.

This has to have been the worst Con I have yet attended! Not only was it disturbingly creepy, not only was the weather terrible, but the sheer creativity and innocent delight that all the furries put into torturing me this con elevated it from the merely dreadful to a nearly “perfect storm” (no pun intended) of suffering, dread and woe.

Let's start with the venue:

The Crowne Plaza (a.k.a the Habitrail Hotel) was clearly built in several stages starting in the 17th century and was an unending, confusing warren of hallways, stairwells, blind alleys and bottomless pits, inconvenient to get around at best and utterly confusing to navigate at worst. Drama Llamas are not good with directions and I needed a GPS system just to find my way from the dreary, overfilled and furry-sweat smelling lobby to my dreary, overfilled and furry-sweat smelling room. Unfortunately, since the hotel was built before the turn of the century, my cellphone refused to work anywhere in the complex, rendering it a mazelike labyrinth without even the ability to call or text someone for directions...as if I had anyone to call who would actually answer a Drama Llama! I managed to find my way from the overpriced restaurant to the room exactly once, and it was because I left a trail of stale oyster crackers behind me.

Next, Con Security had been handed off (i.e. outsourced) to an elite group of orange-shirted baboons called the “Dorkai” or something. Apparently this was for several reasons, firstly because they are semi-trained at crowd control and first aid (not to mention Last Rites) and secondly they are apparently quite good at killing zombies, which was actually to come in handy later. It also allowed Con Staff the illusion of plausible deniability so that if anything bad were to occur, they could blame the Dorkai who went about gleefully abusing their authority everywhere, kind of like a geeky, low-budget version of Blackwater Security in Utili-Kilts, only with less firepower and lower standards of dress code. They punished even minor infractions with severe tongue-lashings and occasional kicks to the groin. I got yelled at three times just for standing in front of the hotel hanging out minding my own and everyone else's business! They even had me ejected from the hotel just for innocently grazing on leftover food from the room service trays in the hallway. I have proof! http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/8176757955/

Then there were the Evil, Squeaky Fox Twins. Don't laugh, you know who you are (VIN!). They surrounded me, and totally intruded on my personal space all the while squeaking “We WOVE you Dwama Wamma!” “We WOVE you, Dwama Wamma” “We WOVE you, Dwama Wamma” loudly and incessantly and worse, in stereo! They kept trying to pin in me in a corner and hug me up and would even grab other fursuiters to join in the abuse. I had to flee them more times than I can count and it did bad things to my blood pressure. Everyone was constantly trying to HUG me and TOUCH me and SNUGGLE me, YECCCHHHHH! I got group-glomped several times and it was beyond horrible. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9223560/ for one example.


Then I found myself in the Fursuit Parade and they stuck me BEHIND THE ZOMBIES who (worst of all) showed no interest in me whatsoever. It was almost as if I had nothing that they wanted!

Speaking of which, another major annoyance was the zombies who seemed to be simply everywhere dribbling blood and internal organs on the carpet and of course were constantly hungering for the flesh of the living. I think that was mostly 'cuz the hotel food was so expensive. The drink was not cheap either and at $10 a shot from a bottle that cost $35 in the liquor store it was less expensive to simply guzzle the hand sanitizer from the rooms even though it left my breath smelling like Bactine.

I did not get drunk this con because everyone was too stingy to give me unrestricted access to their booze and couldn't even scam my way into a room party (is everyone starting to wise up about letting a Drama Llama into their room now?!)

I heard about some kind of Fight Club party but I didn't want to have to get into ANOTHER fight just to get into it 'cuz apparently you had to show proof by having some cuts or bruises or scars or something and Drama Llamas are incredibly allergic to pain.

Oh yeah... naturally after three days with little to no sleep, someone decided it would be a great idea to trigger the FIRE ALARM at 4:00 AM, and emptying the entire population of the hotel into the parking lot in varying states of undress and drunkenness. It was a great opportunity to feed on some first-class drama, however, and I got my first good meal of the con gorging on the negative emotion, resentment and anger of the suddenly-sleep-and-yiff-deprived congoers.

Naturally, furries being furries they even managed to turn this major inconvenience into an early morning parking lot party and this of course led to some kind of weird orgy scene by the hotel loading docks which forced the fire department to turn their hoses on the overly-amorous crowd before another generation of mixed-breed furry offspring was conceived.

Sunday night I also met a fursuiter named Kos the Chimeragoat http://www.furaffinity.net/user/koschimeragoat/ who surprised me very much by being both willing to hang out with me, AND talk to me. No one EVER does that for more than a few minutes but we wandered the con for awhile on Sunday night while he charmed everyone with his wit and handsome good looks with me walking next to him painfully aware of my own clumsiness and lack of grace, tact and social skills... Frankly I am amazed he would even be willing to be seen in the same hotel, let alone walk around next to me for the better part of an hour...he was intelligent and articulate and classy and had an outrageously gorgeous fursuit...and....and....and... I can't believe I am actually complimenting someone!

I must be feeling ill and coming down with con-crud from all the hugs or something...

Then my flight home got canceled due to the stupid hurricane and I had to spend the next three days camping out under a freeway overpass before I could get home. Stupid hurricanes! I can't believe they would cancel air traffic just for a dumb storm that was only the size of Texas.