A Recreational Stroll

       Throughout my life, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to make mistakes. Interestingly, my life also seems to become a shining example of Murphy’s Law quite often, and it always happens when I think, “Well, gee, this couldn’t get any worse.” I am here to tell you it absolutely CAN.

I don’t think I’ll be apprehended by the police if I tell this story, so I’ll tell it. Here I am, with one of my long time friends, standing in his driveway at one in the morning, listening to some music and having a chat. I look around my surroundings, and marvel at the sight, complete darkness, save the few spots illuminated by the dim moonlight. I ask my friend, “Hey man, want to go for a walk? I’ve never walked around at night like this, before.” If there’s one thing that I dream about, but know I’ll never achieve, is complete isolation. I know it sounds weird, but the thought of being the only person walking the earth, with everything else operating just as it normally would…it’s intoxicating. This night was like that. It probably sounds weird, but I find everything much more beautiful devoid of people. I’ve always dreamed of walking around the city at night, all of the lights on, but nobody else around. It’s a lot easier to appreciate things when other people aren’t, say, jaywalking.

       Anyway, I ask my friend if he’d like to go for a walk. Being the person he is, he happily exclaims, “Of course!” Before we leave, though, he walks back inside to grab something, and then we go on our merry way. We talked about a lot of things, for instance, I asked him, “Can you imagine what the earth looked like when these trees were just beginning to sprout?” and other stupid things like things like that. As we’re walking, I begin to smell something…something a little weird. I ask my buddy if he knows what that smell is, and he shows me what he grabbed from the house before he left. Now, I like my friend, but I will readily admit he does NOT make the best decisions. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small bowl, packed with some slightly charred weed. “Want a smoke?” He says, offering me the bowl. Now, I have nothing against marijuana, but I told him that I simply wanted to enjoy myself sober, because I like being in control of my thoughts and actions. I tell him, “Listen, man…I don’t really care if you smoke, but don’t you think it’s kind of unnecessary at a time like this? We’re walking by so many houses, what if somebody smells your weed?” He basically just responds with, “eh, don’t worry so much haha.” I shake my head, but keep moving forward.

       It’s at this point that I can sense a car approaching us from behind, it’s headlights marginally brightening our surroundings. My buddy looks at me and says, “Shit, dive, man!” And promptly dives into a ditch. I keep walking without him. The car slowly drives past us, probably just surprised that we were out here in the first place. We weren’t wearing reflectors, so we probably just scared the poor guy as two dark figures slowly appeared in his headlights. With the car gone, my buddy comes back up to me and says, “Well, thank god that wasn’t a cop car. That would have been different.” “What do you mean, a cop car?” I reply. “Uhh, dude, you know cops patrol around the town at night, right?” This was certainly news to me. Like I said earlier, I’ve never walked around town this late at night before. My ideal image of a relaxing walk in solitude was slowly crumbling. “Man, if cops are going to be patrolling, we need to go home. You stink of weed, and you have that big ass bowl in your pocket, what are you going to do?” My friend just laughs, assuring me that he’s the smoothest talker he knows, and could get us out of any situation. “Yeah right.” I decided it was time to just turn back and go home, this wasn’t exactly turning out to be a serene walk. My friend at least understood where I was coming from, and followed me back home, the whole way looking over our shoulders. We did end up jumping into the

       bushes a couple of times, because the cops DID end up patrolling the road we were on.

Once we were back home, I promptly called him an idiot, then laughed at the absurdity of what just had just happened. Even if it was dumb, it was a story to remember. We went back inside and started to play some video games. Maybe I was contact high from all of his smoke, or just happy to not be in a police car, because we treated ourselves to some burgers, and they tasted absolutely great. Maybe tonight wasn’t such a mistake after all. I mean, it did lead to this delicious burger.