I'm oh so glad they sent me away

Our choice early Saturday evening was whether to have dinner now or later. We had two panels, one we wanted to attend, one I wanted to run, coming up. If there weren't a pandemic then we could be confident in finding a Taco Bell or something serving at 10 pm. Or if the con suite's food hadn't turned from vegetarian-unfriendly to borderline-hostile (last year they at least offered cheese pizza; this year it was nachos or nothing) we might grab a quick dinner there. So, though it offended our sense of order to get dinner at like 6 pm, we did, driving out to White Castle to get a bunch of Impossible Sliders and fries. I, again not being able to remember the exact name of the citrus blend I like, ordered a Coke Zero Orange, which I like and could remember the name of and which they would have. They apologized that they only had Coke Zero Orange Vanilla.

The first panel, the one we wanted to just attend, was a gettogether for ``Trash Animals''. You know, raccoons, opossums, rats, all the creatures that humans blame for living where humans provide abundant food and shelter. Coatis are not generally regarded as such here in Michigan, but I figure the coati-raccoon axis is close enough, and I imagine they have a reputation in cities where they might live as urbanized wildlife. bunny_hugger brought her squirrel puppet, to represent her companion/second voice Chitter, as squirrels don't get much respect in the city unless they're albino or black.

The panel was in the pavilion out back, the same spot where the fursuit parade photograph was held in October. And the same spot where my own Raccoons and Procyonids SIG was to be an hour and a half later. The spot was not heated, it turns out. But it was extremely echo-y. The host had everyone introduce themselves and how they came to their animals. And I took the moment to promote the Raccoons and Procyonids SIG, holding up one of the trash bins I brought; tipping them over and revealing the prizes inside is a longrunning tradition for this con and Morphicon/Anthrohio. After the introductions, and it took a while as about two dozen people came in, they broke up the circle so that everyone could just mingle, rather than go on about any particular topics. It was hard to talk in such an echo-y room, and also to talk to strangers, but we managed and said hi to just about everybody, I think.

Fun as it was, bunny_hugger feared the event would eat mine's lunch. I was more confident, figuring anyone who was at this would like to have more that was like it. And that there's people interested in ringtailed animals who don't care for the ``trash animal'' label. (I'm one of them.) Well, she was right and I was wrong. I went to the car to get my stuff for the panel, and came back to set up to find a fursuiter dancing to their boombox and two people watching there. They weren't there for the panel; they were just using the space to rehearse ahead of the Fursuit Games. With those starting, they went off, and taking their place ...

Well, nobody. We stuck around for fifteen minutes in a dismally empty space, without a soul even looking near us. The pavilion, being outdoors, drew no passing-by traffic, and (I would later confirm) the convention didn't tweet about the panel or anything. So after enough of this we gave up, put stuff back in the car, and went to do something to soothe my wounded ego. That evening, I scheduled a tweet, mentioning the con by name, to run 15 minutes before my other panel and that they did retweet and reply to, at least.

We played some Earthshaker in the video game room. And went to the con suite, eating chips and drinking beer or such; it's always been a drinking con. Set for 10 pm was Furry Bingo, which bunny_hugger thought worth attending. This was just bingo played by furries, although the prizes included selections of furry things ranging from fursuit accessories (or pet toys) all the way up to convention memberships for next year. This seemed like a good way to spend an hour of the time before the dance, set to start at 11:30.

Most of that hour was spent with the very slow process of getting everybody their cards, and their chips. Part of the complication was that more people came than they anticipated. And that you could buy second and third cards, or buy premium cards for more valuable prizes, and they were overloaded by that. Also that as people kept drifting in they needed the chance to get and buy cards explained to them again. It was about 50 minutes before a number first got called, and the numbers would keep being called extremely slowly. Also, they hadn't set up any mechanism to show what numbers had already been called, such as by using the overhead projector they had set up and turned on. So after every two or three numbers, and a lot of clowning around between the presenters, they'd go through and re-recite all the numbers on the chance that someone would spot a bingo they hadn't noticed before. This was cumulative, unlike our experiences with Fascination or the like; the first winners got their picks from all the prizes, but they just kept going with the partially filled cards to call out more prizes.

My card I went a good four or five numbers without getting anything, and grumbled, ``My card is broken''. But then they started picking things I had, and I started catching up to bunny_hugger. Not quickly, though, since none of this was done quickly. Some women off to my right complained how, you know, they have work tomorrow, they can't stay up all night for this. bunny_hugger also complained that she hadn't had time to take her half-hour walk, the one daily exercise she never misses, and she was being locked into either missing this, or missing the dance, or taking her day's walk at 2 am when we had to check out of the hotel by 11 am Sunday.

Eventually the women next to us gave up, and gave us their cards. We'd end up collecting close to a dozen cards, which would have overwhelmed our ability to follow had they called numbers at any reasonable pace. But, even more remarkably, eventually they called enough numbers that I won! And could join the very long, slow process by which they verified my win and finally let me pick a prize from what was left. This would be a line art drawing, by Luna The Cute, artist Guest of Honor. They'd said they would get us in contact with each other so I'm guessing I need to ignore that and go contact Luna myself. A few numbers, or 186 minutes, later I would win again, at which time the best of the remaining things was a t-shirt from the con store. I have t-shirts from all the past Motor City Furry Cons, and from the last Furry Connection North (its predecessor), but figured, eh, why not? And then failed to collect that on Sunday before the convention ended. Maybe I can use it next year. Neither of these wins were on my original card.

Eventually it was past midnight and bingo was still showing no signs of ending. I told bunny_hugger to take her walk and I'd watch her cards and if she won and there were something good I'd get it for her. She accepted this, and left to walk back and forth through the hotel for a half-hour. During that time she did finally have one of her cards win, although there was a huge line of people waiting to get their cards verified, and I had seen that what was left was just, like, squeaky toys good for people who have dog fursuits, or Rick and Morty dolls or stuff similarly unappealing to us.

But they finally, eventually, did run out of prizes, and declare Furry Bingo completed at something like 12:30, or ninety minutes past the scheduled end time. I gathered up our stuff and shuffled to some chairs outside the hall, waiting for bunny_hugger to finish her walk, while I listened to a couple friends-of-each-other sharing their old jokes.

This left us with a short slice of Saturday's dance left, but we did take it. bunny_hugger didn't have time to get into fursuit for it, but she was able to bring out a T-shirt she had thought lost forever until it turned up at the bottom of the closet (or the equivalent). It's one with a picture of a nice white rabbit loafing ... or, under black light, the skeleton of the rabbit, showing off nice sharp fangs. Makes a good devilbunny shirt. And it turned out the dance had a black light, that night, so we got to see the shirt in action. There were enough other visible lights we couldn't see it well, but we could see it at all, which was a triumph. We didn't have enough of the dance, and in retrospect probably should have skipped Furry Bingo or given up on it sooner. But it's not a worthwhile experience if you aren't doing some things that, in retrospect, you'd maybe have done differently.

Back to Friday night at the con, and particularly the con suite.

Once more they set paper out on the tables in con suite for folks to draw on. Here's a couple of bunny_hugger's doodles, including an Austin that she felt she had the hang of right up until she got to the head (a tricky part of coatis), and how she rescued a drawing of herself loafing that looked terribly angry by adding some snoring to it.

My own doodle, of me curled up and bunny_hugger sleeping on my belly. She added the hearts. The 'Art By ... ' something was there when we got in.

Some or of bunny_hugger's doodles. She often draws flamingo-like or dragonny creatures when doodling. The tic-tac-toe was there when we got in, complete with the novel approach to claiming a tic-tac-toe. However, she wrote the ``experimental noughts-and-crosses'', from one of the most wonderful lines in the book of Father Ted scripts. One episode the script called for an inset shot of Father Dougal's ``page of experimental noughts-and-crosses'', an idea too funny to be made manifest. (It was replaced with the iconic these-cows-are-small, those-cows-are-far-away scene.)

Trivia: No cooper (barrel-maker) has ever been President of the United States. Source: Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence, Denise Kiernan, Joseph D'Agnese. (This in the biographical sketch of Sam Huntington, of Connecticut, who was President of the Continental Congress when the Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781, and so was the first person to style himself President of the United States in Congress Assembled, and who cooped for a living.)

Currently Reading: Shattered Dreams: The Lost and Cancelled Space Missions, Colin Burgess.