Context: At the time, I was going to a college located near the top of a small mountain. There’s a town about a mile away from the campus, also on said mountain. At the time, I was rather out of shape, and I have foot problems that exacerbate any attempts to walk uphill.
Anyway. Our campus store had taken advantage of its relative monopoly by charging rather inflated prices for such staples as notebooks, laundry detergent and the like. I was determined to walk to town and buy these things more cheaply. So I set off. The part of town closest to the campus was full of antique stores and cafes. Hip? Certainly. Also pretty, and fun to window shop in. Sadly, there was no store with offers of cheap laundry detergent, so I was forced to continue my search. I walked another mile or so, through residential areas and past motels, still nothing. I had started to get somewhat tired (out of shape, remember). Finally, there in front of me sat a K-Mart. The holy grail of cheap staples.
I think I bought some sort of breakfast sandwich at this point.
Anyway, I loaded up my backpack with paper, notebooks, two large cases of cheap laundry detergent, and a few other miscellaneous items, and prepared for the trek back. The new items were quite heavy, especially the cheap laundry detergent. Those alone probably added 20 pounds to my backside, not even accounting for the other stuff. At this point, I could no longer move briskly, forced to trudge along. I trudged back to Antique Shop Street, buying a drink along the way. The sun was hot.
At this point, I decided to take a shortcut back, as I was tired and hot and weighed down with cheap laundry detergent. I only vaguely knew how it went, but I was sure I could figure out how it went. So I started trudging uphill. Already, my feet hurt, and I was forced to splay them.
As you’ve probably already guessed, I missed my turn. There was a turn I needed to make to get back to campus, and I didn’t make it. In my defense, it didn’t help that large leafy trees were growing everywhere. The sides of the road were sparse, and I trudged on, hoping to carry my cheap laundry detergent back to the dorm and do some celebratory laundry. Every turn looked like it could be the final stretch.
Sadly, I encountered no campus-like buildings. I saw some individual homes, and some interesting mailboxes. I encountered a puddle large enough to hold a mosquito colony. My feet started to hurt even more, and my leg muscles were spasming slightly. I contemplated asking for help, but I wasn’t sure about knocking on a random stranger’s door. Around the point when I reached a completely unfamiliar construction site, I realized that if I didn’t find my way soon, my legs would just…give out. Which would probably be fatal.
And then, I reached the top, where the road started going downhill. Obviously, I knew I had passed the campus. Now things were looking really bad. I weighed my options. I could walk all the way back to town, and go back the way I knew. I was unsure I could make it that far. Plus, there was the (unfounded) fear of the sun setting. If that happened, I was truly screwed. Advancing held no advantages, but at the time my mind was addled from the sun and the exhaustion, so I pressed on.
Luckily, only a few hundred feet forward, I saw a massive nursing home. Fear be damned–I needed help, so I just hobbled my way right in there and asked the receptionist…for directions. She offered to drive me. And somewhere, in the back of my brain, the sleep-derived suicidal voice of pride had me refuse, weakly. Fortunately, I was able to forcibly regain my senses, and I rode back to campus, depositing my cheap laundry detergent on my bed. I earned the shit out of that cheap laundry detergent.