Hello readers of the community bulletin board! After the success of last month's Existential Sack Race, and the rising popularity of the Depression Dash, we've decided to add another event to our roster: the Emotional Obstacle Course.

The objective is simple. To win, you must complete the course without succumbing to the vast range of emotional obstacles that separate you from the finish line.

We've gone to great lengths to make this course as challenging and thrilling as possible. Our head activities director, Trent, who recently suffered a devastating divorce that he doesn't seem to be getting over anytime soon, has designed a doosy of a course. In Trent's own words, "I hope the course captures the terrible, ultimate pain of life, without giving the illusion that there is any point to it at all." 

Woman goes under a barbed wire obstacle course
In terms of your self-esteem, excellent positioning.

THE COURSE

  • To begin, you will wait in a dark room, which has been outfitted to be cozy, warm, and completely blinding to the course ahead.
  • To get you started running, we will show a digital representation of all of your friends and peers already far ahead of you in the course, leaving you behind.
  • As you race to catch up, you will quickly be confronted with several random, unpredictable paths, and told to pick one. If you decide a certain path isn't right for you after you begin, you may go back and choose another, but you must do it while hopping on one leg. Remember, more difficult paths may lead to easier tracks, but everything ends eventually.
  • As you begin your path, our course's Head of Audio will test your focus by blasting discouraging messages over the loudspeaker, mainly concerning your personal shortcomings and any mistakes you make during the course.
  • Throughout the track, you'll encounter special stations designed to make you question the true purpose of the course itself, and whether there even is one at all.
  • Frequently, one of our attendants will begin to run the course with you, sticking by you, only to abandon you once you grow attached to them. All of this will be done underwater, for which you will be blamed.
  • Other racers may help you, but everyone has been instructed to eventually leave you, probably for another, much cooler racer.
  • Occasionally, an attendant, who we have specially trained to be infinitely better at the course than you, but who doesn't seem like he's trying hard, will join you. He will have the same name as you, and a much better haircut.
  • The further you run into the course, the more complex it will appear. In addition, many parts of the later course include display monitors showing the progress of people having more fun than you, the people who abandoned you, and how unhappy you've made the first two attendants.
  • In order to advance through certain parts of the course, you must complete menial, tedious exercises for extended periods of time in order to earn COURSE BUCKS, which hold no real value, but control almost everything about the course.
  • For added challenge, at all times there will be an attendant following you in a black robe. He has been told to tail you, and to throw you off of the course whenever he sees fit. He will make it look like you can outrun him, but rest assured, you cannot.
  • Finally, there will be a constant promise of cake and ice cream further in the course, but it will always appear to be just a few more obstacles away.
  • Once the man in black has ejected you, or you have given up, you will be placed into a dark room for an hour, then forced to repeat the course, again, and again, and again.

Worst of luck!

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