Pitufa.at

Usually we’re not much into sports, but last week we discovered a new exciting adrenaline sport and now we’re really hooked up. Play almost every day, fall into bed exhausted each evening, wake up with sore muscles, just to play another round of “extreme provisioning triathlon”.

The rules are quite simple:
The game starts early in the morning. The players warm up by taking several buses through the city, searching for the supermarket where the event starts. Sometimes the bus drivers add a challenge even before the game starts by telling the players to get off at the wrong bus station, hence giving them an extra chance to warm up their muscles. The players then quickly fill up two or three shopping carts and then the first discipline starts: the steeplechase.
The players wave frantically at taxis (which ignore them after a look at the shopping cart), but after 20 minutes standing in the dust and heat next to the road a taxidriver takes pity (usually one with a Micra Mouse or a similar spacey brand), the players load up the poor vehicle up to the roof and try not to catch a cold in the freezing cold interior. The taxi sets them off at the bars of the parking space and the players start running back and fourth carrying the shopping bags from the bar to the dinghy dock (the young soldiers guarding the parking space watch with mildly amused expressions behind their mirrored sunglasses–they’re the ones who refuse to open the bars). The shopping bags are then balanced down the slippery stairs to the dinghy.
By then it’s afternoon, the breeze has picked up to provide waves with white caps and the second part of the competition can start: dinghy splashing! The players load up the dinghy as high as possible (careful, stumbling on the steps and dropping a bag into the water or falling headfirst in results in minus points–one of the players has found out that already), ride out the overloaded dinghy half a mile to the boat, heave up the wet, salty bags onto the deck and go again to collect the rest of the bags.
When all bags have reached the deck the third part starts: tucking away.
All bags need to be washed, dried, contents organised, rice/flower/etc. is repacked into weevil/cockroach/mealworm-save containers and then everything is stuffed wherever space remains (bilge, hidden lockers under matraces, etc.)

Yesterday we decided to take a day off from extreme provisioning and try a different sport instead: extreme laundrying. Taking the laundry ashore to wash it and back to the boat resembles the steeple chase and dinghy splashing or extreme provisioning, but then the real challenge comes up: in gusts up to 25 knots the players thread the clothes on the line (just clipping them on to the line would result in lost items and loss of points). As the clothes are lashing violently about, protective gear (helmet, protective goggles) is recommended. Don’t try this at home, kids!