Yesterday, as I was heading home from the library after several long hours of studying for Tuesday’s theology test, I was suddenly struck by a note-worthy craving for some type of Good Earth tea—something with a bit of punch on the fore-end, and a zingy afterbite…oooh yeah.
Now obviously I could have chosen to ignore the craving, but we recently watched a lovely video in our psychology 201 class about the stages of pregnancy, and one of the things which very strongly came out was the fact that some pregnant women have cravings—most of which are apparently life-threatening and relationship-destroying things if not instantly fulfilled. Therefore, although I didn’t feel that my situation was life-threatening or relationship-destroying in urgency, I decided I ought to start practicing the whole finding-creative-ways-to-fulfill-a-craving thingamajig, just in case some day I were ever to wake up and find myself with child and dying of a particularly awful craving for mint toothpaste. (Always best to set some sort of historical precedent BEFORE one is actually placed in the situation, you know).
So I dropped my 300 lb backpack in my room (I seriously think they started making textbooks and laptops heavier in the past five years), kidnapped a few trusty friends who were up for a bit of psychotic shopping, and we set off in the rain, huddling under our umbrellas like a bunch of shriveled Chinese grandmothers wearing Inuit mukluks…
It’s uncommonly difficult for two people to walk under the same umbrella, we discovered, even if that umbrella happens to be a massively-huge golf umbrella with double layers and a highly-sophisticated plastic hand grip.
But we made it to WalMart, greeted the greeter, and set off to find the tea aisle feeling rather proud of ourselves. (Thea is directionally challenged, so it was a good thing her friends had come along to help her with that part, or she might still be wandering the aisles of the electronics section looking for tea bags… )
Walmarts in Wisconsin have lots of tea…presumably because Wisconsinites have highly-developed palates when it comes to the art of tea consumption. Walmarts in Virginia, however, do not. This is presumably because everyone in the south drinks a somewhat nasty substance known as “sweet tea,” and therefore, they do not have refined palates when it comes to the art of drinking real teas. Thus, when I finally entered the longed-for tea aisle, and stood before the measly little selection of nice cardboard boxes, I discovered that there was not a single box of Good Earth tea to be found in Lynchburg’s pitiful excuse for a WalMart. Alas.
I hardly knew what to do. I lowered my head and had a moment of silence for the death of my tea dream. (the WalMart clerks were just relieved that I had finally stopped talking out loud to myself for a few seconds…apparently this is NOT normal shopping behavior). And then I thought a whole bunch of friendly thoughts about WalMart, and the state of Virginia, and after that, it was all good. So my dear little friends and I picked out some other items, just to show WalMart that we weren’t the kind of people who hold grudges about poorly-stocked tea aisles.
As we were meandering up and down the long cart-racing tracks of which WalMarts are composed, we perceived (due to the dull roar) that the heavens had opened above Lynchburg, and that what had once been a gentle sprinkle had turned into a regular ark-requiring torrent outside. Heh. Good thing people aren’t made of sugar or earthworms…neither of which seem to do very well in the rain.
The sole male member of our party wanted to walk half a mile up the highway to get something hot to eat, because he hadn’t made it to the cafeteria before closing time that night…a sad occurrence which tends to leave people feeling rather hollow in their innards.
So off we went, with the rain trying in vain to dissolve our umbrellas, and the little rivers in the parking lot successfully soaking through our boots. We nearly got run over on three different occasions, and each time, we made a mental note to ourselves of the fact that walking on highways in the rain without a sidewalk after dark is probably one of the more high-risk behaviors engaged in by Lynchburgian college students…oh well.
One fine young chap from campus stopped to ask us what on earth we were thinking, to be thus walking around in the rain, and he offered all of us a ride in his truck. However, the only available riding space happened to be in the very-much-open bed of his truck, and therefore, we decided that, rather than riding home in the moving kiddy pool which had magically appeared in the back of his truck, we would simply take the risk of walking on our multiple sets of feet.
Which we did. Only, rather than walking back all the way that we had come, Thea thought it might be a smart idea to climb up the embankment behind the restaurant and take a short-cut through the woods. It wasn’t a good idea. But we did it anyway.
Virginia has a lot of…dirt. And when dirt gets wet, it makes…mud. So we were trying to climb up the 20 foot embankment behind the restaurant…which was made out of dirt. Which had become mud. And it was so, sooo fun. But very, very dirty.
Gabi, my Argentine roommate, had come along for the grins and giggles. At this point, she was thoroughly convinced that the concept of climbing the embankment was a ludicrous aspiration, but one worth attempting nonetheless. After a few memorable near-death sliding experiences, we had made it up the first embankment…and found ourselves facing a very, very long set of train tracks. I like train tracks. They’re so…solid.
Directly on the other side of the train tracks was a ditch. Only it was raining really hard. So the ditch had become a stream…which was significantly wider in some places than in others. Being intelligent college students with stunning deductive and inductive reasoning skills, we naturally looked for the narrowest point in the stream at which to cross. But we couldn’t find it. So we ended up just finding a slightly skinniesh looking section and jumping. And…Gabi kinda didn’t make it and landed in the water, but by that point, our boots were so thoroughly soaked it didn’t really make a hill of beans’ worth of difference.
There was another embankment right on the other side of the stream…so we linked umbrellas, got a run at it, and half-hauled, half-pushed each other up to the top, where we landed in a delightfully slimy stretch of reddish-brown something-or-other (which may or may not have had substantial nutritional value for the resident earthworm population, none of whom were visible at that moment…perhaps they were all out practicing the breaststroke in the local earthworm swimming puddle. Btw, the earthworm population? Desperately in need of qualified lifeguards. None currently appear to exist.)
After shaking ourselves off doggy-style and wringing out our rather bedraggled umbrellas, we raised our precipitation-filled eyes several centimeters and discovered that we had emerged from the woods almost directly in front of our dorms. Oh, life is full of beautiful surprises!
As we walked back into the dorm, Gabi looked at me with eyes full of wonderment. “Thea, in all my life, I have never done something like this. My mom would have said it was crazy, but really, I had a lot of fun!”
I assured her my mom probably would have said exactly the same thing. Apparently moms are kinda the same in every culture—who ever woulda thunk it?!
But regardless of whether or not I am lacking in saneness, it was a memory-making experience, which, although sadly lacking photographic evidence due to the lackage of underwater cameras available for use, shall remain a part of our Liberty experience.
Thank God for sane mothers, warm showers, crazy friends, and WalMart.
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