Meghan Jezewski: Hitchhikings

Back in the day.

When I was fifteen, my high school environmental science class went on a camping trip somewhere in the middle of nowhere. As an aside, where I grew up and went to school was almost already in the middle of nowhere. We were hormonal and self-involved. Probably stoned, a little drunk, and resolutely free of our familial expectations and bonds. For better or for worse.

It was a three day trip.

My friend and I got freaking bored of the limited supply of steaks and shit beer and of watching the boys compete for our attention.

So we decided to head out on the road.

It was a sunny, chilly fall day. The leaves were all orange. It was a pretty sweet specimen of an Eastern Canadian autumn.

I remember leaving our primo camp. There were beaten down charcoal barbeque boxes and rotten picnic tables. It was a dry, hardscrabble, once muddy pit of pretty much nothing but pockets of gravel. Gravel mining was a key local industry.

So we get to the road and it’s a dinky country road. No shoulder which makes hitching a little scary. There were farm fields on both sides.

We were NOWHERE. And we’re still bored. And we’re telling each other stories about the everything that can go bad while we’re hitching.

We were free. We were also a little titillated because, fifteen and stupid.

We walked for a while. Maybe we smoked a joint, maybe we didn’t. And we were SO bored. Just so bloody bored. A rustic pick-up truck passed us and pulled up ahead. We weren’t really even actively seeking a ride, just hoping.

My friend talked to the driver and I couldn’t really see what she said. She kind of called the shots in our friendship so when she got in I followed.

It was a bench seat – lots of room for the whole family. They talked. I spaced out. Safety first!

Then somehow before we knew it we were back at the entrance of the camp road. We got out.

We weren’t murdered. That was good.

I honestly have no idea how long we were in the truck and where we went. It could have been an hour. It might have been five minutes.

And that was that.

One Comment

  1. Hey Meghan, just so I don’t forget, I heard from a reader that this duo post was a little confusing to figure out which section was which person. So maybe next time we do this we can figure out a way to better signal who is the author of each section.

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