Lunchtime conversation
Me: "I need another diversion."
A: "Buy an outfit and fight crime."
Me: "Did you say 'fight crime'?"
A: "Yep."
Me: "And did you say 'buy an outfit'?
A: "Yep."
Me: "What sort of outfit would I need to fight crime?"
A: "A superhero outfit."
Me: "Ohhhhh, I see. What could be my superhero name?"
A: "I don't know. I'm sure you could think of a good one."
Me: "What sort of crime could I fight? How about laziness?"
A: "No, that's not a good one. I like to be lazy."
Me: "Yeah, me too. Hmmmmm....."
A: "Hey, I know. Redneckery."
Me: [ giggle ]
A: "You could go into a restaurant and say, 'Hey YOU, wearing the camo tank top! You're outa here, buddy!'"
Me: [ belly laugh ]
A: "And... 'Hey YOU with the mullet! There's the door!'"
Me: [ snort-laugh ] "And after I kicked them out, everyone left in the place would stand up and cheer. I WOULD be their hero!"
Later, inside my head
That conversation with A would make a good blog post.
I really should come up with a good superhero name, though, before I write it.
I'm not feeling that creative right now, unfortunately.
Plus....something else isn't quite right.
Redneckery is petty darn funny, but might there be a more appropriate crime to fight?
Something more unique to me?
Hmmmm.
What type of crime or disservice would I be qualified to combat?
What am I good at?
Well. There's innuendo.
But how could I fight innuendo?
Why would I want to, anyway? It's funny.
I mean, it's hard to beat a good "bigger is better" statement in the middle of a staff meeting.
Or during cycling class: "By the time you leave here, you'll be limp and spent."
Or after cycling class: "Yeah, I know it was hard, but let's be honest -- it wasn't long."
Or when talking to a friend about shopping: "I really love BJ's."
Or when talking about toys at work: "Hey, why don't you bring your balls to our meetings?"
I wonder if it is technically innuendo when it's truly an innocent statement.
I'll have to look that up sometime.
Hey.....wait.
I could be onto something.
That could be my superhero spin.
I could defend the innocent people in the world who spout innuendo without meaning to.
I can jump in and kick the butts of the mean people who laugh at them and make them feel bad.
Who better than me?
Since I am a queen of deliberate innuendo, I'd be able to recognize accidental innuendo immediately.
I could come to the rescue with superhero speed, yeah!
[ knock knock ]
What's that?
[ knock knock ]
Is that someone else in my head? Who are you?
[ I'm your conscience, Lisa. ]
Geesh, what do YOU want?
[ You realize, don't you, that you've laughed at these people yourself since 1978? ]
I wasn't laughing at them. I was laughing with them. There's a difference.
[ Explain that difference. ]
Well.....I'm not mean about it like some people are.
[ Lisa, you should examine your.... ]
Oh, shut up.
[ Lisa.... ]
Go away. There's a box of donuts over there in the corner.
Subsequent e-mail chain
Me, to X and Y: If I were a superhero, what would be my name?
X: Seriously?
Me: Actually, allow me refine the question: If I were a superhero who fought crime in the form of accidental innuendo, what would be my name?
Y: In Your End, Oh!
Me: I am falling out of my chair, ha! I'd hate to see what my outfit would look like.
X: Hilariass.
Me: If I fall out of my chair again, I’ll need to go to the doctor for a coccyx exam.
Y: Hil Hairy-Ass
Me: OK, I’m going to have to leave work early. I hope Dr. Long can fit me in.
X: Is she Richard Long’s sister, Anita S. Long?
Me: I am hyperventilating in my office! The trash dude just came in and now he thinks I am insane.
X: Is her practice on Grove Road, next to the Wang & Hung practice?
Me: I thought she practices with Dr. Hardenfast.
X: Oh, that's right... and Sly Downhum.
Y: And triplets Lou, Bree and Kate.
X: Aren’t those Dr. Jellifinger’s kids?
Y: Ho, ho. That’s what happened when the rubber didn’t meat those who were rode.
Me: Hey, did you hear that Dr. Jellifinger divorced his wife to marry acupuncturist Sum Pun Tang?
X: Did you know that she’s the sister of the Asian porn star Ty Twat?
Y: Who happens to be allergic to kumquats and baloney ponies.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I don't think it's a partridge in that pear tree
Me: "Hey, have you ever heard of a cum tree?"
S: "A what?"
Me: "A cum tree."
S: "A country?"
Me: "No, a cum tree. Two words. A cum tree."
S: "A cunt tree?"
Me: "No, a cum tree. C - U - M... T - R - E - E."
S: "Um. No."
Me: "So you've never smelled one?"
S: "Nooooooooo.... What are you talking about? Is this a euphemism for a penis?"
Me: "No, it's a tree. Outside. A tree."
S: "Oh, it's an actual tree?"
Me: "Yeah."
S: "Is that the actual name of it?"
Me: "No, I don't know what kind of tree it is. That's what I was wondering. Some friends called it a cum tree a few years back while we were walking through downtown Asheville. That's when I smelled it the first time."
S: "You know, now that you mention it, I used to take drives to Chicago, and on the way I would always smell...jizz."
Me: "Man juice."
S: "Baby batter."
Me: "Spooge."
S: "Man relish."
Me: "Guy goop."
S: "I thought maybe the smell was some type of...I don't know...onion, maybe."
Me: "Well, I smelled it again recently. Took me awhile to realize what it was. At my gym the other day, we dragged our bikes outside for a spinning class, and I kept getting a whiff of...something. Then I realized we were underneath those trees."
S: "I wonder what kind of tree it really is."
Me: "Dunno. Googled 'cum tree' last night, but plant-related results didn't land near the top."
S: "Hey, you should ask J. She is a master gardener, you know."
Me: "That's right, she is! And she will know what I'm talking about because she was the class instructor that day. Perfect, I will ask her."
S: "Please make sure I'm there when you do. And make sure other people are standing around, too."
Me: "Come on, let's do it now. J and M are both sitting in the next room."
So we walk over to find J and M talkin' shop at a small conference table...
Me: "Hey, J--we've got a question for you."
J: "Yes?"
S: "There's a tree...that has a particular....smell...."
J: "You mean a Bradford pear tree?"
Me: "Are those Bradford pear trees outside the gym?"
J: "Yes, they are."
S: "Does the tree...have a nickname?"
J: "Hmm?"
S: "Do people call it a cum tree?"
M: "Oh, I know what you're talking about. It smells like semen."
J: "You know, it's funny. Some people can't smell it at all, but the ones who do smell it, think it reeks--no one actually likes the smell. It is a very popular tree, though."
S: "Oh, yeah? Why?"
J: "Well, for one thing, it grows very fast."
S: "Really, it grows fast? Does it grow very tall?"
J: "Yes, quite tall and straight. It also has a nice shape and an early bloom."
S: "How interesting. And the top of the tree--does it get pretty full? Plump? Like it has a big head?"
J: "Oh, yes. It gets very full. Sometimes it gets so heavy that it falls over."
S: "You're kidding me. It will fall over, limp?"
M: "Like it's had too much to drink?"
J: "Correct. Or it may break."
S: "So sometimes the trunk is not strong enough?"
J: "Correct."
S: "Wow. That is interesting."
Fast facts
According to Clemson University's online Home & Garden Information Center, the Bradford pear tree...
- Grows up to 50 feet tall and 30 feet wide.
- Has a narrow and erect canopy.
- Is a rapid grower, but has a short life span.
- Sprouts showy white flowers in the springtime which, unfortunately, have an unpleasant fragrance.
- Also bears small, round, brown fruit which are hidden by the leaves.
- Can be used in urban settings because of its tolerance to pollution.
- Is relatively free of insect problems, but can suffer from severe branch splitting.
- Requires low-to-medium fertility.
- Tolerates most conditions, including occasional wet soils or drought.
S: "A what?"
Me: "A cum tree."
S: "A country?"
Me: "No, a cum tree. Two words. A cum tree."
S: "A cunt tree?"
Me: "No, a cum tree. C - U - M... T - R - E - E."
S: "Um. No."
Me: "So you've never smelled one?"
S: "Nooooooooo.... What are you talking about? Is this a euphemism for a penis?"
Me: "No, it's a tree. Outside. A tree."
S: "Oh, it's an actual tree?"
Me: "Yeah."
S: "Is that the actual name of it?"
Me: "No, I don't know what kind of tree it is. That's what I was wondering. Some friends called it a cum tree a few years back while we were walking through downtown Asheville. That's when I smelled it the first time."
S: "You know, now that you mention it, I used to take drives to Chicago, and on the way I would always smell...jizz."
Me: "Man juice."
S: "Baby batter."
Me: "Spooge."
S: "Man relish."
Me: "Guy goop."
S: "I thought maybe the smell was some type of...I don't know...onion, maybe."
Me: "Well, I smelled it again recently. Took me awhile to realize what it was. At my gym the other day, we dragged our bikes outside for a spinning class, and I kept getting a whiff of...something. Then I realized we were underneath those trees."
S: "I wonder what kind of tree it really is."
Me: "Dunno. Googled 'cum tree' last night, but plant-related results didn't land near the top."
S: "Hey, you should ask J. She is a master gardener, you know."
Me: "That's right, she is! And she will know what I'm talking about because she was the class instructor that day. Perfect, I will ask her."
S: "Please make sure I'm there when you do. And make sure other people are standing around, too."
Me: "Come on, let's do it now. J and M are both sitting in the next room."
So we walk over to find J and M talkin' shop at a small conference table...
Me: "Hey, J--we've got a question for you."
J: "Yes?"
S: "There's a tree...that has a particular....smell...."
J: "You mean a Bradford pear tree?"
Me: "Are those Bradford pear trees outside the gym?"
J: "Yes, they are."
S: "Does the tree...have a nickname?"
J: "Hmm?"
S: "Do people call it a cum tree?"
M: "Oh, I know what you're talking about. It smells like semen."
J: "You know, it's funny. Some people can't smell it at all, but the ones who do smell it, think it reeks--no one actually likes the smell. It is a very popular tree, though."
S: "Oh, yeah? Why?"
J: "Well, for one thing, it grows very fast."
S: "Really, it grows fast? Does it grow very tall?"
J: "Yes, quite tall and straight. It also has a nice shape and an early bloom."
S: "How interesting. And the top of the tree--does it get pretty full? Plump? Like it has a big head?"
J: "Oh, yes. It gets very full. Sometimes it gets so heavy that it falls over."
S: "You're kidding me. It will fall over, limp?"
M: "Like it's had too much to drink?"
J: "Correct. Or it may break."
S: "So sometimes the trunk is not strong enough?"
J: "Correct."
S: "Wow. That is interesting."
Fast facts
According to Clemson University's online Home & Garden Information Center, the Bradford pear tree...
- Grows up to 50 feet tall and 30 feet wide.
- Has a narrow and erect canopy.
- Is a rapid grower, but has a short life span.
- Sprouts showy white flowers in the springtime which, unfortunately, have an unpleasant fragrance.
- Also bears small, round, brown fruit which are hidden by the leaves.
- Can be used in urban settings because of its tolerance to pollution.
- Is relatively free of insect problems, but can suffer from severe branch splitting.
- Requires low-to-medium fertility.
- Tolerates most conditions, including occasional wet soils or drought.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Neverdone #2 :: Running with the devil
I can't prove it. But after careful consideration of all the possibilities, I've concluded that I must be possessed by a sadistic devil.
Maybe it's the ghost of someone who has recently passed away, someone I was mean to in my younger days. I was a pretty sweet kid until I hit my early teens....I wish I'd known back then that my rebellious, selfish little 13-year-old attitude might one day create some pretty dire consequences. Or maybe it's someone I knew in college, back when I was so intent on pursuing my newfound freedoms that I didn't notice I'd injured someone's feelings quite badly. Or maybe it's not personal after all....maybe it's just a mischievous entity that came across my deviant, slothful soul completely at random.
How do I know I'm possessed?
It's Saturday. The one morning of the week I cherish as my relaxation time. For a few tranquil hours, I sit on my blue couch while sipping freshly brewed coffee, cuddling with my cats, surfing aimlessly on my laptop, and watching TV shows I'd DVR'd throughout the week. If I feel particularly productive, I might blog some sort of nonsense. I protect this time. I decompress from the energies of the previous week. I "meditate" through mindless, stress-free, brain-resting, low-key activity.
But last week, I did something that will effectively end my blissful ritual throughout the entire springtime. It'll force me out of my happy, comfortable home at a freakin' obscene hour every single Saturday morning for the next 12 weeks. I will roll out of bed before 7am... slide into, ahem, *athletic* clothes... skulk, bleary-eyed, into my car... and drive 20 minutes across town to have someone chase me up and down the streets of Greenville at, I'm guessing, 5-7mph.
I signed up for a group running program.
I would never do this of my own free will. My weekends have always, always been about sleeping as late as possible and putting out only enough effort to get me through whatever idle amusements may strike my lazy-ass fancy. To get up and get dressed and leave the house before 8am when I don't *have* to? Not possible! To go through all that in order to do something NOT gratifying in an immediately pleasure-inducing way?? I must be possessed!
I know the running is good for me. So perhaps I won't seek an exorcist, allowing the devil to stay warm and snug within me. Maybe the vile little thing will create some other sort of havoc, too, to keep me entertained in the coming months. You know how I hate to be bored.
Hey, now I've got a devil AND a pixie! Awesome.
Anyway.....
This morning was our first run, in a cool, sprinkling rain which, by the time we were done, had my hands numb (why did I leave my gloves in the car?) and my hair soaked. To my surprise, I performed pretty well, but I'm not expecting that to last. Within a few weeks, I'm sure my cardiovascular system will suffer in ways I haven't experienced since basketball practice in high school. But, if I'm successful in the program, it'll lead to another neverdone -- my first 5K!
We'll see how it pans out.
( Don't know what a 'neverdone' is? Click here >> * )
Maybe it's the ghost of someone who has recently passed away, someone I was mean to in my younger days. I was a pretty sweet kid until I hit my early teens....I wish I'd known back then that my rebellious, selfish little 13-year-old attitude might one day create some pretty dire consequences. Or maybe it's someone I knew in college, back when I was so intent on pursuing my newfound freedoms that I didn't notice I'd injured someone's feelings quite badly. Or maybe it's not personal after all....maybe it's just a mischievous entity that came across my deviant, slothful soul completely at random.
How do I know I'm possessed?
It's Saturday. The one morning of the week I cherish as my relaxation time. For a few tranquil hours, I sit on my blue couch while sipping freshly brewed coffee, cuddling with my cats, surfing aimlessly on my laptop, and watching TV shows I'd DVR'd throughout the week. If I feel particularly productive, I might blog some sort of nonsense. I protect this time. I decompress from the energies of the previous week. I "meditate" through mindless, stress-free, brain-resting, low-key activity.
But last week, I did something that will effectively end my blissful ritual throughout the entire springtime. It'll force me out of my happy, comfortable home at a freakin' obscene hour every single Saturday morning for the next 12 weeks. I will roll out of bed before 7am... slide into, ahem, *athletic* clothes... skulk, bleary-eyed, into my car... and drive 20 minutes across town to have someone chase me up and down the streets of Greenville at, I'm guessing, 5-7mph.
I signed up for a group running program.
I would never do this of my own free will. My weekends have always, always been about sleeping as late as possible and putting out only enough effort to get me through whatever idle amusements may strike my lazy-ass fancy. To get up and get dressed and leave the house before 8am when I don't *have* to? Not possible! To go through all that in order to do something NOT gratifying in an immediately pleasure-inducing way?? I must be possessed!
I know the running is good for me. So perhaps I won't seek an exorcist, allowing the devil to stay warm and snug within me. Maybe the vile little thing will create some other sort of havoc, too, to keep me entertained in the coming months. You know how I hate to be bored.
Hey, now I've got a devil AND a pixie! Awesome.
Anyway.....
This morning was our first run, in a cool, sprinkling rain which, by the time we were done, had my hands numb (why did I leave my gloves in the car?) and my hair soaked. To my surprise, I performed pretty well, but I'm not expecting that to last. Within a few weeks, I'm sure my cardiovascular system will suffer in ways I haven't experienced since basketball practice in high school. But, if I'm successful in the program, it'll lead to another neverdone -- my first 5K!
We'll see how it pans out.
( Don't know what a 'neverdone' is? Click here >> * )
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Yo, Simon....click here
I realize that only a couple of you read magicalmonkey on a regular basis--so I'm probably not helping her out that much--but on the off chance that your name is Simon Cowell and you have stumbled upon this blog by googling something like "dimwitted pixie ass hair geocaching Barbie iPhone nipples," I'd like to turn you on to Brandy Lindsey & the Punch.
I'd known Brandy for many years as a freelance graphic designer before I ever knew she was into music. Then I discovered that she was a singer/songwriter/musician/composer in addition to being a talented print pro. I checked out a performance one night at a local club, and have been a big fan ever since. Remember those really superathletic people you used to know in school? Those lucky people who, no matter what physical activity they attempted, they excelled? Well, Brandy is one of those lucky people in the world of creativity. Impressive.
Nowadays I don't work with her in her freelance capacity, but she sings to me over my fun little Shuffle as I run. :)
Oh, and before she chastises me for not mentioning "The Punch," let me say that they rock, too! Here's their first video.
I'd known Brandy for many years as a freelance graphic designer before I ever knew she was into music. Then I discovered that she was a singer/songwriter/musician/composer in addition to being a talented print pro. I checked out a performance one night at a local club, and have been a big fan ever since. Remember those really superathletic people you used to know in school? Those lucky people who, no matter what physical activity they attempted, they excelled? Well, Brandy is one of those lucky people in the world of creativity. Impressive.
Nowadays I don't work with her in her freelance capacity, but she sings to me over my fun little Shuffle as I run. :)
Oh, and before she chastises me for not mentioning "The Punch," let me say that they rock, too! Here's their first video.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
A lazy post
Yeah, yeah.....this entry is a blatant cop-out, I know. The original content here is nil. But WHAT a hip little blend of funny, philosophical, and practical. You may find some words here which will change your life forever. Wow!
If it raises me a notch in your esteem, I do have a couple topics percolating. They've been.....smelling kind of nice in the mornings. Mmmmmmm. :)
If it raises me a notch in your esteem, I do have a couple topics percolating. They've been.....smelling kind of nice in the mornings. Mmmmmmm. :)
When my friend told me he had found Jesus, I thought, "Yahoo! We're rich!" But it turned out to be something different.
-- Jack Handey
A secretary runs into the boss's office and says "Can I use your dictaphone?" He says, "no, use your finger like everybody else."
-- Bernard Manning
You'll never achieve extraordinary results by taking average measures.
-- Skwigg
Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again.
-- Mike Myers
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
-- Franklin P. Jones
Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?
-- James Thurber
To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
-- Elbert Hubbard
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.
-- Jack Handey
There are grammatical errors even in his silence.
-- Stanislaw J. Lec
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
-- Pablo Picasso
Monday, March 3, 2008
Crazy nerd fun
Whoa!! I am blogging directly from my freaky-hip new iPhone. This is the coolest geek-thing I've done since figuring out how OSX handles fonts.
My biggest frustration with the device is lack of MMS support. Geesh! The thing is a step away from time travel, and they didn't build in a feature that every $30 phone possesses. But then maybe Apple knows something we don't. Reminds me of the day they introduced a Mac with -- gasp! -- NO floppy disk drive. Everyone thought Steve Jobs was insane, but we missed those drives for about 3 minutes before they became obsolete.
There's a workaround, anyway. It's a minor pain in my ass, but I'll live. :)
And I'm getting used to the keyboard. Soon I'll be posting porn-star length entries from odd places like, um, my sister's barn or, ummmm, the upstairs restroom in Stephen Colbert's summer home.
Hey, I said 'porn-star length' again.
My biggest frustration with the device is lack of MMS support. Geesh! The thing is a step away from time travel, and they didn't build in a feature that every $30 phone possesses. But then maybe Apple knows something we don't. Reminds me of the day they introduced a Mac with -- gasp! -- NO floppy disk drive. Everyone thought Steve Jobs was insane, but we missed those drives for about 3 minutes before they became obsolete.
There's a workaround, anyway. It's a minor pain in my ass, but I'll live. :)
And I'm getting used to the keyboard. Soon I'll be posting porn-star length entries from odd places like, um, my sister's barn or, ummmm, the upstairs restroom in Stephen Colbert's summer home.
Hey, I said 'porn-star length' again.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Neverdone #1 :: Strangers in the night
If Frank Sinatra began crooning in your head when you read this blog title, you can stop him right now. Offer him a dry martini and invite him to sit down in the back of the room. The tender interlude in his song is not where my story will lead you.
Now, I can imagine that you've been sitting on the edge of your hot little seats, in orgasmic anticipation of the very first item in my yearlong 'neverdone' series. What would it be? Would I go off a freakish deep end and do something heretofore unimaginable, or would I somehow adapt one of my weirdly inane posts about the goings-on in my head?
(Yeah, yeah, I know. I have a really wacked-out imagination and an obviously elevated opinion of my own importance. I realize that any "orgasmic anticipation" you've experienced lately has nothing to do with me.....or at least I assume that is the case, since it hasn't happened in my presence. But, hey.... I can create whatever universe I choose inside my own head. This week I have been feeling quite center-of-the-world-ish. And, as you've already discovered if you've done any scrolling down, pretty darn chatty.)
(Anyway.....)
Last weekend was full of so many neverdone items that, if I used them all, I wouldn't have to post another one until the summer!
I've never gotten into a van at night with 6 semi-strangers and headed to the mountains. I've never tromped around in the woods during the most obscene nighttime hours, beams from my flashlight reflecting gems off the surrounding dew. I've never met a huge, surprisingly cuddly-looking rat who'd made a comfy home in someone's long-abandoned house. I've never felt the primal ....umm..."pleasure" of emptying my bladder in the woods. I've never been geocaching in a group larger than three people.
So I guess that last sentence gave it away, huh? I went night caching with some people from the Upstate SC Geocachers Association (USCGA).
Why did I go??
It is whompin' leagues outside my comfort zone to invite myself on a road trip with people I barely know. And this, my friends, is a big reason why I did it. My comfort zone is too complacent, too ordinary, too safe. I don't like my comfort zone anymore. It's boring. I want to force myself out of that sleepy place.....in fact, I'm using my neverdones as a catalyst.
The other big reason is that I've been SOOOO starved for a good, decent cache run.....it's been well over a year since I left the house with a geo-bud for an all-day adventure full of treasure hunts and hiking and fresh air and bushwhacking and exploration and inspiration and good old-fashioned stress-bustin' fun. I'd been on a few afternoon trips, but those were just appetizers that made me crave a big, juicy, open-your-mouth-wide-and-bite-hard slab o'meat. Medium rare.
The original plan that a friend and I had on Saturday was to attend a USCGA coffee event after grabbing some yummy Asian fare. I read in the club's online forum that a few people were planning to knock out a new series of night caches afterward, and I was pretty darn close to convincing my friend that we should go with them. I mean, it wouldn't be weird if both of us went, right? But then she caught a nasty little bug which laid her up at home the whole weekend, and I wound up having to bring a ton of work home. Since I'd posted in the forum that we were probably in for the cache run, I called one of the geocachers to decline....and, instead, he ended up convincing me to join them. Honestly, though, it didn't take much convincing. His excitement was lightspeed contagious!
Before midnight
Around 8:30 or so Saturday evening, I sat in my car in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, those telltale white wires trailing from my Shuffle to my eardrums. Cranking up the volume of a favorite running tune, Prince sang that he really does love me, but not like he loves his guitar. I wondered whether I might someday develop a special relationship with an inanimate object. But then I realized I already had--my Nikon and my Mac. Instruments of my creativity, just like Prince and his guitar. Well, maybe not just like Prince and his guitar, but..... My cell phone rang, signaling that the gang had arrived.
Cool! Let's cram in the van and go!
Everyone was so nice that it wasn't too supremely awkward that I didn't know these people very well. There were five men, one of whom brought his wife. Most of them I'd spoken with via e-mail or the forums, but actual real-life conversations had been minimal. At one point early in the evening, my comfortzonometer's alarm went off when I realized that most of them go caching together on a regular basis....but....then I mentally whacked that shy 5-year-old in my head ON her head. Geesh, won't she ever grow up?
Our drive to the first geocache took about an hour, I think, and we (well, mostly they) filled the vehicle with random chitchat. I got the impression that my particular brand of humor might not be fully appreciated, so I did not snicker in the least when someone posed the question, "Would you like one with a creamy center?" I did share with them, however, the freakish little OCD way in which I like to eat Smarties. One person asked me if any of my friends ever compared me to Monk. Ha! :)
(I know I've described this to some of you, but probably not everyone. You see, the orange Smarties taste WAY better than the other colors. So I want to savor them, and I want get a lot of them in my mouth at the same time so that my tastebuds can concentrate on the yummy orangey-ness. I'll take apart 3-4 rolls, restacking the pieces on a table in front of me, each color forming its own tiny candy tower. Then I'll eat them, one color-stack at a time, saving the orange ones for last. It makes beautiful, perfect sense to me. And if it makes you feel better--it certainly does me, now that it's many days later--I didn't go into quite that much detail with the caching crowd.)
(There I go, off on a tangent again.....)
We had eleven caches ahead of us--135 miles on winding mountain roads. The series, called "Fright Night," was designed so that you would find a single clue in each of the first ten. If you figured everything out correctly, the clues--based on horror-flick trivia--would provide you with the coordinates to the eleventh "bonus" cache. I would've been SOL myself, but with everyone's brains enlisted, as well as one guy's cell phone internet access, the group had no prob.
The general premise behind night caching is that reflective items are strategically placed so that, with the aid of a bright flashlight, you are led to the physical cache. It turned out that most of the Fright Night caches were not placed with that concept in mind. A lot of them were just 35mm film containers hidden on or near roadside signs, random trees, or manmade structures.
(By the way, if you'd like a quick primer on geocaching in general, click here.)
Remember many paragraphs back, when I told you I'd never been caching in a larger group? Well, one thing I discovered is that you'd better be superhero fast if you want to be the person who actually finds something first. I was sitting in the very back of the vehicle, so by the time I'd scrambled out and determined which way my GPS receiver was leading me, one of the fast boys had, especially on the easy roadside caches, already found it. Ahhhhh, well....
But, make no mistake, the advantages of the group totally rocked the pants off the disadvantages. Mainly because I wouldn't have done the night series at all without a few testosterone-types around--which is something that's not in my geo-world of late.
There were times when the walk to the cache was longer, so I had time to catch up and actually help look. One of the first ones we found (not me....alas, that night it was never me) was in a park in Walhalla. Despite assurances in the online cache description that it was OK to be there, we saw signs which conveyed that the place was closed after dark. So I felt like one of the "bad kids" in high school, breaking-and-entering to do n'er-do-well sorts of stuff. What fun! This cache was hidden at a gazebo. I'm sure it would have been amusing to passers-by to see seven flashlight-wielding adults scrambling all over it.....some on their backs looking under benches, some standing on the benches examining the interior rafters, some kneeling to poke their heads underneath the structure, some on the nearby grass kicking around in the vegetation..... Ha!
(It may not surprise you that breaking-and-entering did not make my neverdone list because--you guessed it--I've done it. But you may not have imagined this scenario: It's about 1am on a crisp, clear, autumn night. A 20-year-old Lisa, dressed in skinnyleg Levi's and a tight turtleneck underneath a pink button-down oxford shirt, is being walked back to her dorm on the Clemson campus by a similarly-dressed frat-guy type--let's call him Dumass. I'd met this character through friends about an hour earlier, on the way out of one bar and into another. Well, Dumass decides to take a detour through Death Valley. He talks me into slipping through the gates with him--I am so inebriated I have no idea how that loud clank of a sound helps him get in--but I firmly draw the line at breaking into the VIP box. So he tells me to wait for him, he disappears behind a wall, and is gone FOR-freakin'-EVER. I sober up, gradually, sitting against the fence and all too aware that I am somewhere I should definitely not be. He finally shows up carrying a seat cushion he stole from the box, and--this is the kicker--bleeding profusely from his right hand. MF'ing geesh, man. We continue the walk to my dorm, talk the security guard into allowing Dumass upstairs, I bandage his hand, and he promptly passes out on my floor. After he skulks away the next morning, I never, ever, ever see Dumass again. A good thing, don't you think?)
(Auuuuugh!! Back to the story at hand. Sorry, sorry, sorry.....)
By midnight, we'd found four caches out of eleven.
After midnight
Hey, if Eric Clapton is rockin' happily in your head right now, let him sing. Not because the party-lyrics are so appropriate, but because I like his song much better than Sinatra's.
One of my favorite stops of the night was in a spooky-fun location. There was a short-but-steep drop-off from the road which led quickly into thick woods. There was a creek. And an abandoned house. We searched the area for 45 minutes--the darkness made the find way harder than it would have been in daylight. I kept losing my bearings, not able to tell where I'd searched and where I hadn't. My fingers and toes were going numb, but I was NOT going to cave and go back to the van for warmth. No way! I'm no wussy girl. At one point I heard a huge crash coming from the abandoned house, and I found out later that one of the men had gone upstairs only to fall through the floor. He came out of it with a nasty bruise, I think, but no one mentioned blood.
This was where I met the aforementioned rodent. Everyone had converged upon the house to search, and someone had disturbed the burly rat-fella in his warm, comfy rat-lair. One of the men urged me over, and I was hesitant to go look, but I'm glad I did. I'd expected one of those dark grey, nasty sewer-rat-looking rats. But when I peeked into the soft pillowish mound of pink insulation near the basement ceiling, I saw a tannish-colored, cute mousey thing with whiskers. Looked like a pretty little Jerry-like house mouse.....only twenty times bigger. He'd retreated toward the back of his nest, sniffing the air as he struggled to see beyond the flashlights shining in his face. Poor thing. I'll bet he would've chewed our fingers off, given half a chance.
This was also where I started to feel a slight nudge in my kidneys....just a tiny one. Barely there at all.
Only once during the night did I allow Lisa to come through. You guys know her. The woman whose sense of humor is a somewhat uncomfortable marriage between a pubescent boy and a horny longshoreman. Or perhaps a threesome among Beavis, Butthead, and Mae West. I probably should've kept my mouth shut, I know.....but the setup was so perfect.....so EASY.
We were all standing around a newly-found cache, the finder kneeling near the container, signing the log for all. Everyone's flashlights combined to give a faint glow to the group. I don't remember the entire sentence, but one man off to my right uttered this phrase as part of a completely innocent statement:
"...I'm going to touch myself..." (Or was it "hold myself"? I forget. Oh well, same thing.)
Even though I stood there knowing it might not be a good idea to utter one of those typical-Lisa comments, I very deliberately took a breath, parted my lips, and said, "Well, give me a heads-up so I can look the other way."
Now, that's actually pretty tame for me. Worse--a LOT worse--has come out of my mouth. But I hadn't seen any evidence of like minds all evening, so it was a big-risk punch line.
There was silence.
In retrospect, it was probably only a nanosecond or two, but, in the moment, the dead air held a cavernous void....into which I wanted to crawl head-first. But then I heard a few quiet, obligatory chuckles. And then.....there was a weirdly palpable light-bulb moment where suddenly they realized what I said. And that I said it on purpose. It was a relief to hear the hearty laughs I'd been trying for. Whew! No awkward ride home after all.
And of course--of course--I discovered the next day, as I read his geo-profile, that the man who made the "touch" comment is an associate pastor. Of course.
(Since tangents seem to be enmeshed in this post's prosaic style, here's another one. This story involves a Lisa-comment and a pastor. At a work party a year or so ago, a group of us were standing around, and one man was wearing a pair of those new-style dress shoes with the longer toes. My observation: "Hey, you know what they say about men with big feet." I got a laugh, a snicker, a chuckle.....it should've died there. Well, a few minutes later someone told me that a coworker's husband--a Lutheran minister--had been standing right behind me, and had probably heard me. Well, I was mortified! Everyone got their funny-bones tickled at my embarrassment, and one woman, good friends with Mr. Lutheran Minister's wife, shared the story with Mrs. Lutheran Minister. Who thought it was a riot and, of course, shared the story with Mr. Lutheran Minister. Who, of course, decided to try and make me feel better--or was he just messing with me?--by coming over to tell me a story involving a penis. Well, now. If I knew a stronger word for 'mortified,' I would use it here. This was a different brand of minister from the ones I'd known in the past, let me tell you. I was so horror-struck after hearing the word 'penis' from him that it was difficult to pay attention to the story he told. Something about losing weight and growing an inch.)
Finally, we arrived at our last cache before the bonus. It was a quick find for the fast boys again, and everyone piled back into the van so that the keepers of the clues could determine the coordinates to the bonus cache. You should've heard the groans when they realized we'd have to go ALL the way back to an area which we'd long ago abandoned.....back near the whiskery-cute rat and his cozy pink nest. It was 3am-ish, and the drive, according to the vehicle's Garmin nav device, would take about an hour. But we'd come too far to give up!
I may have napped a little during this long drive on curvy, mountainous, abandoned roads. The van was a lot quieter, and I'd look up now and then to see a couple heads nodding in front of me. The other female in the gang was out like a light beside me. At one point, we got lost.....the van's Garmin kept telling the driver to turn down a nonexistent road. There was a lake where the road was supposed to be.
Now. At this point in my blog entry, I am faced with a creative challenge, folks. What is the best way to convey to you the feeling in my kidneys??
I'd had my eyes peeled since midnight-ish for any sort of roadside civilization that wasn't someone's home, dark inside with slumbering residents who were privileged with modern toilets mere steps from their warm beds. I'd asked the gang in the front of the van to keep their eyes peeled for a stopping place. No big deal, I said, because at the time I felt like I could hold it for awhile.
"Hey, didn't we see a Citgo?" someone asked.
"Yeah, but it was closed," another answered.
"Well.....you could still sit 'n' go."
A great one-liner, don't you think? Lots of laughter all around. But as the minutes ticked by, and then turned into hours, the pressure in my bladder changed from a slight, polite nudge to a raging, inevitable force of nature threatening to rupture with no more than a microscopic wisp of a disturbance in the air around me. I was certainly getting in my kegels.
The bonus
Finally, yay! We arrived at the bonus cache coordinates! This 4am hike would be the sweet culmination of the evening's activities.
I got out of the van a good bit slower than before, trying to judge what might happen within my bladder as I became more vertical. Might I be able to make it? Search for the cache, then get back into the van, and wait for the first available gas station on the ride home? I hung near the back of the group as everyone plunged into the darkness, and, not even 100 feet from the vehicle, the driver had to go back to the van to retrieve something he forgot. By this time, my bladder was cursing me as if possessed by 43 demons with tourettes. So I asked him for a kleenex, and, grateful for the napkin in my hand, I set off toward a loose clump of trees as he walked off to catch up with the others.
Yes, I grew up on a farm in the rural South--pastures edged with thick woods in which I played constantly--and I have never peed in the woods. No matter how unlikely that seems, it's true.
I swung my flashlight to the left. I had an idea of the best mechanics for the situation, thanks to a friend's vivid, entertaining tale involving a hunting trip, a stomach bug, a tree, and a very scary bear. So I look for a tree. Not too close to the road, but somewhere nearby--I didn't want to lose sight of the flashlights in the distance. No leaves on the ground. Leaves cause splatter. I found a perfect little place--it didn't meet my not-too-close-to-the-road requirement, but we hadn't seen any other vehicles for a couple hours, at least. I ran over, turned the flashlight off, dropped it on the ground in front of me, exposed my girly privates to the cold night air, assumed the position, and......
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
In the middle of the act, I thought: Dammit. What if there's a slight slope to the ground, and it's inching toward my feet? What if it reaches my flashlight? Eww, freakin' ewwwwww.
But I did not care, and wasn't ABOUT to stop. It felt too good. Besides, that was just paranoia whispering in my ear.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Elation! I smiled a broad, fulfilled smile in the darkness as I quickly gathered myself, grabbed the flashlight, and ran toward the bouncing lights in the distance.
It turned out that a few of the cachers had graciously waited for me, so together we followed the reflective dots into the woods--finally, a real night cache. It was great! I loved the cold, I loved the obstacle-strewn walk, I loved the sparkly dew that looked like tiny diamonds all around me. I longed for my camera, for the chance to capture that image for posterity. Remember the dimwitted pixie-muse from my December 1st post? He showed up during the walk to the bonus cache. Perhaps my empty bladder sang a happy song to my imaginary spirit-friends out there, and the pixie showed up to see if there was any free booze.
Well, that's about it. We piled in the van for the last time, and hit the road homeward. We rolled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot around 5:30, and I was home a little before 6am.....sleepy, exhausted, and content.
Will you forgive me?
From the bottom of my motormouthed heart, I apologize for the porn-star length of this post. Once in awhile, words come out of me in quite a diarrhea-like fashion.
Oh well. It gave me a valid reason to use the phrase 'porn-star length.'
Now, I can imagine that you've been sitting on the edge of your hot little seats, in orgasmic anticipation of the very first item in my yearlong 'neverdone' series. What would it be? Would I go off a freakish deep end and do something heretofore unimaginable, or would I somehow adapt one of my weirdly inane posts about the goings-on in my head?
(Yeah, yeah, I know. I have a really wacked-out imagination and an obviously elevated opinion of my own importance. I realize that any "orgasmic anticipation" you've experienced lately has nothing to do with me.....or at least I assume that is the case, since it hasn't happened in my presence. But, hey.... I can create whatever universe I choose inside my own head. This week I have been feeling quite center-of-the-world-ish. And, as you've already discovered if you've done any scrolling down, pretty darn chatty.)
(Anyway.....)
Last weekend was full of so many neverdone items that, if I used them all, I wouldn't have to post another one until the summer!
I've never gotten into a van at night with 6 semi-strangers and headed to the mountains. I've never tromped around in the woods during the most obscene nighttime hours, beams from my flashlight reflecting gems off the surrounding dew. I've never met a huge, surprisingly cuddly-looking rat who'd made a comfy home in someone's long-abandoned house. I've never felt the primal ....umm..."pleasure" of emptying my bladder in the woods. I've never been geocaching in a group larger than three people.
So I guess that last sentence gave it away, huh? I went night caching with some people from the Upstate SC Geocachers Association (USCGA).
Why did I go??
It is whompin' leagues outside my comfort zone to invite myself on a road trip with people I barely know. And this, my friends, is a big reason why I did it. My comfort zone is too complacent, too ordinary, too safe. I don't like my comfort zone anymore. It's boring. I want to force myself out of that sleepy place.....in fact, I'm using my neverdones as a catalyst.
The other big reason is that I've been SOOOO starved for a good, decent cache run.....it's been well over a year since I left the house with a geo-bud for an all-day adventure full of treasure hunts and hiking and fresh air and bushwhacking and exploration and inspiration and good old-fashioned stress-bustin' fun. I'd been on a few afternoon trips, but those were just appetizers that made me crave a big, juicy, open-your-mouth-wide-and-bite-hard slab o'meat. Medium rare.
The original plan that a friend and I had on Saturday was to attend a USCGA coffee event after grabbing some yummy Asian fare. I read in the club's online forum that a few people were planning to knock out a new series of night caches afterward, and I was pretty darn close to convincing my friend that we should go with them. I mean, it wouldn't be weird if both of us went, right? But then she caught a nasty little bug which laid her up at home the whole weekend, and I wound up having to bring a ton of work home. Since I'd posted in the forum that we were probably in for the cache run, I called one of the geocachers to decline....and, instead, he ended up convincing me to join them. Honestly, though, it didn't take much convincing. His excitement was lightspeed contagious!
Before midnight
Around 8:30 or so Saturday evening, I sat in my car in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, those telltale white wires trailing from my Shuffle to my eardrums. Cranking up the volume of a favorite running tune, Prince sang that he really does love me, but not like he loves his guitar. I wondered whether I might someday develop a special relationship with an inanimate object. But then I realized I already had--my Nikon and my Mac. Instruments of my creativity, just like Prince and his guitar. Well, maybe not just like Prince and his guitar, but..... My cell phone rang, signaling that the gang had arrived.
Cool! Let's cram in the van and go!
Everyone was so nice that it wasn't too supremely awkward that I didn't know these people very well. There were five men, one of whom brought his wife. Most of them I'd spoken with via e-mail or the forums, but actual real-life conversations had been minimal. At one point early in the evening, my comfortzonometer's alarm went off when I realized that most of them go caching together on a regular basis....but....then I mentally whacked that shy 5-year-old in my head ON her head. Geesh, won't she ever grow up?
Our drive to the first geocache took about an hour, I think, and we (well, mostly they) filled the vehicle with random chitchat. I got the impression that my particular brand of humor might not be fully appreciated, so I did not snicker in the least when someone posed the question, "Would you like one with a creamy center?" I did share with them, however, the freakish little OCD way in which I like to eat Smarties. One person asked me if any of my friends ever compared me to Monk. Ha! :)
(I know I've described this to some of you, but probably not everyone. You see, the orange Smarties taste WAY better than the other colors. So I want to savor them, and I want get a lot of them in my mouth at the same time so that my tastebuds can concentrate on the yummy orangey-ness. I'll take apart 3-4 rolls, restacking the pieces on a table in front of me, each color forming its own tiny candy tower. Then I'll eat them, one color-stack at a time, saving the orange ones for last. It makes beautiful, perfect sense to me. And if it makes you feel better--it certainly does me, now that it's many days later--I didn't go into quite that much detail with the caching crowd.)
(There I go, off on a tangent again.....)
We had eleven caches ahead of us--135 miles on winding mountain roads. The series, called "Fright Night," was designed so that you would find a single clue in each of the first ten. If you figured everything out correctly, the clues--based on horror-flick trivia--would provide you with the coordinates to the eleventh "bonus" cache. I would've been SOL myself, but with everyone's brains enlisted, as well as one guy's cell phone internet access, the group had no prob.
The general premise behind night caching is that reflective items are strategically placed so that, with the aid of a bright flashlight, you are led to the physical cache. It turned out that most of the Fright Night caches were not placed with that concept in mind. A lot of them were just 35mm film containers hidden on or near roadside signs, random trees, or manmade structures.
(By the way, if you'd like a quick primer on geocaching in general, click here.)
Remember many paragraphs back, when I told you I'd never been caching in a larger group? Well, one thing I discovered is that you'd better be superhero fast if you want to be the person who actually finds something first. I was sitting in the very back of the vehicle, so by the time I'd scrambled out and determined which way my GPS receiver was leading me, one of the fast boys had, especially on the easy roadside caches, already found it. Ahhhhh, well....
But, make no mistake, the advantages of the group totally rocked the pants off the disadvantages. Mainly because I wouldn't have done the night series at all without a few testosterone-types around--which is something that's not in my geo-world of late.
There were times when the walk to the cache was longer, so I had time to catch up and actually help look. One of the first ones we found (not me....alas, that night it was never me) was in a park in Walhalla. Despite assurances in the online cache description that it was OK to be there, we saw signs which conveyed that the place was closed after dark. So I felt like one of the "bad kids" in high school, breaking-and-entering to do n'er-do-well sorts of stuff. What fun! This cache was hidden at a gazebo. I'm sure it would have been amusing to passers-by to see seven flashlight-wielding adults scrambling all over it.....some on their backs looking under benches, some standing on the benches examining the interior rafters, some kneeling to poke their heads underneath the structure, some on the nearby grass kicking around in the vegetation..... Ha!
(It may not surprise you that breaking-and-entering did not make my neverdone list because--you guessed it--I've done it. But you may not have imagined this scenario: It's about 1am on a crisp, clear, autumn night. A 20-year-old Lisa, dressed in skinnyleg Levi's and a tight turtleneck underneath a pink button-down oxford shirt, is being walked back to her dorm on the Clemson campus by a similarly-dressed frat-guy type--let's call him Dumass. I'd met this character through friends about an hour earlier, on the way out of one bar and into another. Well, Dumass decides to take a detour through Death Valley. He talks me into slipping through the gates with him--I am so inebriated I have no idea how that loud clank of a sound helps him get in--but I firmly draw the line at breaking into the VIP box. So he tells me to wait for him, he disappears behind a wall, and is gone FOR-freakin'-EVER. I sober up, gradually, sitting against the fence and all too aware that I am somewhere I should definitely not be. He finally shows up carrying a seat cushion he stole from the box, and--this is the kicker--bleeding profusely from his right hand. MF'ing geesh, man. We continue the walk to my dorm, talk the security guard into allowing Dumass upstairs, I bandage his hand, and he promptly passes out on my floor. After he skulks away the next morning, I never, ever, ever see Dumass again. A good thing, don't you think?)
(Auuuuugh!! Back to the story at hand. Sorry, sorry, sorry.....)
By midnight, we'd found four caches out of eleven.
After midnight
Hey, if Eric Clapton is rockin' happily in your head right now, let him sing. Not because the party-lyrics are so appropriate, but because I like his song much better than Sinatra's.
One of my favorite stops of the night was in a spooky-fun location. There was a short-but-steep drop-off from the road which led quickly into thick woods. There was a creek. And an abandoned house. We searched the area for 45 minutes--the darkness made the find way harder than it would have been in daylight. I kept losing my bearings, not able to tell where I'd searched and where I hadn't. My fingers and toes were going numb, but I was NOT going to cave and go back to the van for warmth. No way! I'm no wussy girl. At one point I heard a huge crash coming from the abandoned house, and I found out later that one of the men had gone upstairs only to fall through the floor. He came out of it with a nasty bruise, I think, but no one mentioned blood.
This was where I met the aforementioned rodent. Everyone had converged upon the house to search, and someone had disturbed the burly rat-fella in his warm, comfy rat-lair. One of the men urged me over, and I was hesitant to go look, but I'm glad I did. I'd expected one of those dark grey, nasty sewer-rat-looking rats. But when I peeked into the soft pillowish mound of pink insulation near the basement ceiling, I saw a tannish-colored, cute mousey thing with whiskers. Looked like a pretty little Jerry-like house mouse.....only twenty times bigger. He'd retreated toward the back of his nest, sniffing the air as he struggled to see beyond the flashlights shining in his face. Poor thing. I'll bet he would've chewed our fingers off, given half a chance.
This was also where I started to feel a slight nudge in my kidneys....just a tiny one. Barely there at all.
Only once during the night did I allow Lisa to come through. You guys know her. The woman whose sense of humor is a somewhat uncomfortable marriage between a pubescent boy and a horny longshoreman. Or perhaps a threesome among Beavis, Butthead, and Mae West. I probably should've kept my mouth shut, I know.....but the setup was so perfect.....so EASY.
We were all standing around a newly-found cache, the finder kneeling near the container, signing the log for all. Everyone's flashlights combined to give a faint glow to the group. I don't remember the entire sentence, but one man off to my right uttered this phrase as part of a completely innocent statement:
"...I'm going to touch myself..." (Or was it "hold myself"? I forget. Oh well, same thing.)
Even though I stood there knowing it might not be a good idea to utter one of those typical-Lisa comments, I very deliberately took a breath, parted my lips, and said, "Well, give me a heads-up so I can look the other way."
Now, that's actually pretty tame for me. Worse--a LOT worse--has come out of my mouth. But I hadn't seen any evidence of like minds all evening, so it was a big-risk punch line.
There was silence.
In retrospect, it was probably only a nanosecond or two, but, in the moment, the dead air held a cavernous void....into which I wanted to crawl head-first. But then I heard a few quiet, obligatory chuckles. And then.....there was a weirdly palpable light-bulb moment where suddenly they realized what I said. And that I said it on purpose. It was a relief to hear the hearty laughs I'd been trying for. Whew! No awkward ride home after all.
And of course--of course--I discovered the next day, as I read his geo-profile, that the man who made the "touch" comment is an associate pastor. Of course.
(Since tangents seem to be enmeshed in this post's prosaic style, here's another one. This story involves a Lisa-comment and a pastor. At a work party a year or so ago, a group of us were standing around, and one man was wearing a pair of those new-style dress shoes with the longer toes. My observation: "Hey, you know what they say about men with big feet." I got a laugh, a snicker, a chuckle.....it should've died there. Well, a few minutes later someone told me that a coworker's husband--a Lutheran minister--had been standing right behind me, and had probably heard me. Well, I was mortified! Everyone got their funny-bones tickled at my embarrassment, and one woman, good friends with Mr. Lutheran Minister's wife, shared the story with Mrs. Lutheran Minister. Who thought it was a riot and, of course, shared the story with Mr. Lutheran Minister. Who, of course, decided to try and make me feel better--or was he just messing with me?--by coming over to tell me a story involving a penis. Well, now. If I knew a stronger word for 'mortified,' I would use it here. This was a different brand of minister from the ones I'd known in the past, let me tell you. I was so horror-struck after hearing the word 'penis' from him that it was difficult to pay attention to the story he told. Something about losing weight and growing an inch.)
Finally, we arrived at our last cache before the bonus. It was a quick find for the fast boys again, and everyone piled back into the van so that the keepers of the clues could determine the coordinates to the bonus cache. You should've heard the groans when they realized we'd have to go ALL the way back to an area which we'd long ago abandoned.....back near the whiskery-cute rat and his cozy pink nest. It was 3am-ish, and the drive, according to the vehicle's Garmin nav device, would take about an hour. But we'd come too far to give up!
I may have napped a little during this long drive on curvy, mountainous, abandoned roads. The van was a lot quieter, and I'd look up now and then to see a couple heads nodding in front of me. The other female in the gang was out like a light beside me. At one point, we got lost.....the van's Garmin kept telling the driver to turn down a nonexistent road. There was a lake where the road was supposed to be.
Now. At this point in my blog entry, I am faced with a creative challenge, folks. What is the best way to convey to you the feeling in my kidneys??
I'd had my eyes peeled since midnight-ish for any sort of roadside civilization that wasn't someone's home, dark inside with slumbering residents who were privileged with modern toilets mere steps from their warm beds. I'd asked the gang in the front of the van to keep their eyes peeled for a stopping place. No big deal, I said, because at the time I felt like I could hold it for awhile.
"Hey, didn't we see a Citgo?" someone asked.
"Yeah, but it was closed," another answered.
"Well.....you could still sit 'n' go."
A great one-liner, don't you think? Lots of laughter all around. But as the minutes ticked by, and then turned into hours, the pressure in my bladder changed from a slight, polite nudge to a raging, inevitable force of nature threatening to rupture with no more than a microscopic wisp of a disturbance in the air around me. I was certainly getting in my kegels.
The bonus
Finally, yay! We arrived at the bonus cache coordinates! This 4am hike would be the sweet culmination of the evening's activities.
I got out of the van a good bit slower than before, trying to judge what might happen within my bladder as I became more vertical. Might I be able to make it? Search for the cache, then get back into the van, and wait for the first available gas station on the ride home? I hung near the back of the group as everyone plunged into the darkness, and, not even 100 feet from the vehicle, the driver had to go back to the van to retrieve something he forgot. By this time, my bladder was cursing me as if possessed by 43 demons with tourettes. So I asked him for a kleenex, and, grateful for the napkin in my hand, I set off toward a loose clump of trees as he walked off to catch up with the others.
Yes, I grew up on a farm in the rural South--pastures edged with thick woods in which I played constantly--and I have never peed in the woods. No matter how unlikely that seems, it's true.
I swung my flashlight to the left. I had an idea of the best mechanics for the situation, thanks to a friend's vivid, entertaining tale involving a hunting trip, a stomach bug, a tree, and a very scary bear. So I look for a tree. Not too close to the road, but somewhere nearby--I didn't want to lose sight of the flashlights in the distance. No leaves on the ground. Leaves cause splatter. I found a perfect little place--it didn't meet my not-too-close-to-the-road requirement, but we hadn't seen any other vehicles for a couple hours, at least. I ran over, turned the flashlight off, dropped it on the ground in front of me, exposed my girly privates to the cold night air, assumed the position, and......
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
In the middle of the act, I thought: Dammit. What if there's a slight slope to the ground, and it's inching toward my feet? What if it reaches my flashlight? Eww, freakin' ewwwwww.
But I did not care, and wasn't ABOUT to stop. It felt too good. Besides, that was just paranoia whispering in my ear.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Elation! I smiled a broad, fulfilled smile in the darkness as I quickly gathered myself, grabbed the flashlight, and ran toward the bouncing lights in the distance.
It turned out that a few of the cachers had graciously waited for me, so together we followed the reflective dots into the woods--finally, a real night cache. It was great! I loved the cold, I loved the obstacle-strewn walk, I loved the sparkly dew that looked like tiny diamonds all around me. I longed for my camera, for the chance to capture that image for posterity. Remember the dimwitted pixie-muse from my December 1st post? He showed up during the walk to the bonus cache. Perhaps my empty bladder sang a happy song to my imaginary spirit-friends out there, and the pixie showed up to see if there was any free booze.
Well, that's about it. We piled in the van for the last time, and hit the road homeward. We rolled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot around 5:30, and I was home a little before 6am.....sleepy, exhausted, and content.
Will you forgive me?
From the bottom of my motormouthed heart, I apologize for the porn-star length of this post. Once in awhile, words come out of me in quite a diarrhea-like fashion.
Oh well. It gave me a valid reason to use the phrase 'porn-star length.'
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