My car broke down on the side of the road, and I do not have the money to get it fixed, so I think I have to go live in these woods now.
I don’t have AAA, but I do have a cheap tent in my trunk and most of a can of Mountain Dew left so I should be able to make a go of it.
I’m pretty sure these woods are part of the Daniel Boone National Forest. And if they’re not, then I hereby claim it for him. He did the same to the Shawnee, after all. It’s squatters’ rights. And I reserve the right to squat over a hand-dug hole in the ground and do my business. (Of course, if I did more business, I might be able to afford a mechanic.)
I don’t have any kind of PTO anymore, whether it is Paid Time Off or Parents To Owe. They’re not dead or anything; they just drew a hard line at all the soft, crushed-up lines I used to do.
I don’t know how to forage, but I do have a Pizza Hut gift card my grandmother gave me for my birthday. Maybe they’ll deliver this far out into the sticks I plan to sharpen and stick into the ground.
If I eat a slice of Pizza Hut pizza a day for the next eight days, then I’ll die of dysentery and my problems will be solved.
Why couch surf between my few remaining friends when there’s a perfectly fine couch covered in strange mushrooms next to this pile of old tires? I can use one of the tires as a pillow, and if I get really bored, one of the mushrooms as a kind of hallucinogenic mint.
It’ll be like a hotel. Except the only room service will be my fevered prayers to the statue of Pan that I’ll make out of cigarette butts and pop cans I’ll find littered on the shoulder of the highway.
I’ve always considered myself a fairly talented collage artist. In fact, I have an art degree from the University of Kentucky. That is one of the primary reasons I am now squatting over this hole and taking a dump.
My ex broke up with me because I needed to “find myself.” Now I need to find a way to dry these wet socks. She said I wasn’t a sensitive enough person, but the damp, wrinkled skin of my toes tells a different story.
Maybe if I get lucky someone will come by and try to steal my catalytic converter. They’re welcome to take it as long as they also take me to get some cigarettes. I quit smoking years ago, but you never know when you might need a way to start a wildfire.
Fire is nature’s way of clearing the land, and also my doubts about what I will do for the next six weeks when I am tracked down by the Division of Forestry bloodhounds and arrested for arson.
You might think, in the scenario I get a lift to the nearest gas station by that hypothetical catalytic converter bandit, then why don’t I just go on into town instead of coming back to these woods? Frankly, you underestimate how many times I’ve failed to read Walden.
Thankfully, it’s not a long book. I should have time to finally finish it before all that Pizza Hut pizza catches up with me. Or the shotgun-toting farmer who owns this land. But he turns out to be a nice guy and shows me how to change a tire.
