OutdoorType

Dead donkey, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

He put up a mighty fight, but in the end, candy for everyone!

The pinata was FUN.

But I still miss the good ol’ days when Piñatas came from Juarez and not China. Used to be you could peel apart your trashed piñata and read a fairly recent newspaper that more often than not hailed from a Mexican border town. Now there is no more newspaper. Now the crepe paper is attached to a cardboard form. And the bottom seems to have been pre-weakened so as to allow for the candy to fall with just a few blows (as was the case with our little donkey). Our group was just not going to stand for this.

Comprised largely of adventure racers, this competitive (you might even say highly ultra super competitive) group quickly assessed the situation… Only one person had swung the stick. The hull integrity of the piñata was compromised. Candy was on the ground. Hitting the piñata looked like fun and more people wanted a chance. The solution… tape. Using masking tape we put our emergency backwoods medical skills to the test and quickly repaired the hole and reattached the candy delivery device to the line. And then more fun ensued.

Adventure racers are not known for their abilities to compete in ball sports. Throwing, catching, swinging sticks at balls… there is a reason most of us dreaded PE in school and instead drifted towards self-propelled bikes and boats and the reading of maps and the running through the woods. And so the stances and swinging styles varied wildly from random thrashings to Jedi inspired light saber duels (the light saber allusion being enhanced greatly with the addition of two glow sticks at the end of the offical piñata thrashing wand).

Finally, after a much more acceptable length of time, and after many had had a chance to swing and look foolish (providing much entertainment to the onlookers – and perhaps some annoyance to the neighbors) the donkey was well and truly dead and the scramble for candy began in earnest.