Sord in Prosperity - Hope Beyond the Apocalypse

EP. 150 - HITCHED

WEEKS AFTER THAT EVENT, my two friends and I decided to walk the two long miles through the woods to the museum. It's not that we wanted to visit the place with its prehistoric monsters, but more that we'd heard a rumor that the pottery shards we saw in the gulley by the woods came from discards originated at the museum. We decided to check the story out by following the shards upstream in the creek bed.

As we meandered along, the two miles became five. We'd veer off into the wrong direction at nearly every fork, and without fail, the trail we selected would give out after a few hundred yards, causing us to backtrack to the fork.

By the time we reached the museum, we were tuckered out. I was so tired, I didn't care about seeing the dinosaur bones or imagining when these creatures walked the same land.

While my two buddies were hunting around the museum and getting the evil-eye from uniformed personnel seasoned in railing-in deviant kids from nearby schools, I rested on a bench. Then a question of convenience popped into my mind: "How do we avoid the long walk home?"

I eyeballed the front desk and peered across the floor to search for a parent who knew us, but I saw no familiar faces. Dejected, I closed my eyes and wondered: "If only we could hitch hike. A quick trip home, and nobody needs to know."

For whatever 1960s parental reasons, getting caught hitchhiking was among the worst offenses imaginable. We never knew why, as this was long before there was any widespread awareness of criminal adult deviants preying on kids. For the plan to work, I needed to devise a way to prevent my mom from discovering this possible transgression.

"Let's go," I demanded after my friends checked for the fabled source of broken pottery but found nothing.

"Crap, I'm tired and don't feel like walking," one of them responded.

I laughed as if I had just invented the airplane. "Listen to me, guys. We are not walking home," I confided with an air of unusual authority. "We're hitchhiking."

Both friends paled at the mention. "What?"

"I've done it before," I lied. "Lots of times."

They challenged me on 'lots of times.' For a kid, that means you may have considered it more than once but never dared to actually take part. To my surprise, however, they nodded in agreement, so we walked back to the two-lane highway and started south toward our homes.

"Cripes," one friend complained, his thumb sticking out half-heartedly. "Nobody's going to pick up kids."

Right then, an aging, red Ford pickup going our direction slowed down. I peered inside. What seemed at the time to be three thirty-year-old women was no doubt three teenage girls. At that age, however, kid brains have strict classifications – babies, kids, teenagers, adult types, and old people. The three in the pickup appeared to be 'adult types.'

"You guys need a lift?" the blonde spoke, smiling from the window.

She was magnificent. I was smitten and tongue-tied. Luckily, my friends nodded their heads.

"Then hop in the back," she laughed. "The driver wants to know how far you're going."

"Two miles," I coughed out, feeling like a humble waif kneeling before a Swedish princess.

"Knock on the cab window when we're close, then we'll stop."

We had now executed our plan successfully and were basking in glorious defiance as we bounced along the old, bumpy pavement hobbled by potholes unrepaired from the previous winter's damage.

We were happy. Got away with this one, we did. Something to tell all our friends about, but never the parents, obviously. One more kidhood rite of passage. One more risk taken without dying or serious injury.