Tag: nature

Accidentally Drinking At Work

An orange flower sitting on a bed of green with other orange flowers behind it.

An orange flower sitting on a bed of green with other orange flowers behind it.

So, not my usual hiking post but I will throw in random pictures of flowers in the Shenandoah Valley just because I have way too many pictures of nature on my phone. 

An image of pink flowers.

Context: I was dog sitting last-last week for Cool Dog Sitting Couple, my last day being Wednesday. I had forgotten to return their garage remote door and decided to drop it off over my lunch break on Thursday. While chatting with Cool Dog Sitting Lady after giving her the remote, she tells me I left some hard cider in her fridge (oops!). She is chill about it and returns it to me. I toss it in my lunchbox which was in my car (obviously. I was going over my lunch break so I wanted to eat some snacks in my car). It’s important to note that I’d packed a can of tea in my Starry Night lunchbox that day, which is rather unusual because I pretty much exclusively drink water at work.

A pink flower

Anywho, I return to work, unbox 24893105831905 chromebooks, and then get thirsty.

“Ah, I have tea,” I think to myself gleefully. A rare treat. I unzip my lunchbox, grab a can of what I think is tea, crack it open, and take a longggg swig. I mean long.

You would think the taste being distinctively not tea would somewhat clue me in to the fact something was amiss with my drink. Nah, I kept drinking. Satiated, I set the can down only to realize with horror I have drunken about half a can of hard cider at an elementary school.

A picture of mimosas (the flower, not the drink) against a blue sky.

First, I look around to see if any of the custodians (the only people in the building) were there to witness my muck up. They were not, praise Jesus.

Next, I have a mild heart attack because ya know, just drunk alcohol at work, there are cameras, what if someone sees me on camera drinking hard cider? OMG. So of course I’m like, I’ll just toss it in the trash but then I think what if someone finds the can and is wondering who was drinking hard cider at an elementary school ( Irrational maybe but almost no one is working in the buildings so there would be few culprits should my mistake be discovered. ALSO, I was somewhat loathe to just throw it away as I did pay good money for it as terrible as that sounds).

At this point, I can’t tell if the alcohol is hitting me (unlikely – I can outdrink Legolas) or I’m having an anxiety attack. Regardless, I start chugging water and eating whatever snacks I have left whilst trying to figure out what to do with this can of cider. If I toss it in my lunch box, it’ll probably spill everywhere as I will inevitably forget it’s in there when I leave for work. And even if I dump it in the sink, what if someone sees me dumping alcohol in the sink??? Or sees me walking to the sink to dump it out? Argh. That seems so sketchy.

A picture of purple flowers lightly peppered with drops of rain.

So what do I do?

Toss my cardigan over it and keep on working like nothing happened. Fortunately, I was at work for several more hours, so all was well by the time I left work with my cardigan draped over my arm.

Anyway, negative 0/10. Do not recommend drinking alcoholic beverages at work. Next time (if there ever is one), I’ll just drop it off at home, like a rational person would do and then go to work. However, I do recommend going for walks and checking out all the cool flowers you’ll see.

Hiking Isle A Haute in Maine

Context: It’s 2018. We three adventurers (myself and two friends, M and H) take a one-hour boat ride to Isle Au Haut in Maine. We have a great time hiking, enjoying a chill lunch by the water, and taking pictures for the gram.

A white lighthouse by the ocean

However, we (meaning I) wanted to hike to Duck Harbor Mountain. I’m very task oriented so once I get it in my head to do something, I will do it. My friends are more of the dilly dally type, which is fine but we had to be back by 4:00pm to avoid missing the boat and it was about 2:00 when I realized we weren’t going to make it to the mountain moving at the speed of aging turtles.

M and H are indeed dilly dallying by a cliff’s edge, taking pictures. I take my picture and return to the trail, pausing to make eye-contact with H. I say loudly (I think) that I’m going to keep going. And I do.

So there I go, hiking at the speed of a dying slug through beautiful woods with the sound of ocean waves permeating the air. My friends have yet to catch up, oddly. I take a 15 minute break on a comfy rock, eat an apple, and marvel at the beauty of God’s creation. A Hiker Couple passes me. I greet them. My friends are nowhere to be found. Now my annoyance reaches peak levels, I mean why are they hiking so slowly? I told them I wanted to see the view from the Mountain.

So off I go once more. Eventually, I hit this fork in the road (no picture, sadly). It gives me three options: Duck Harbor Mountain, Goat Something, And Wherever I Came From. I realize (sadly) my friends will never know which way I’ve gone as I only lightly voiced my desire to go to Duck Harbor Mountain earlier. I consider going anyway and just meeting them at the boat, but something tells me to turn around. So I begrudgingly head back.

I nearly careen into my amigas on the trail. They are sweaty and breathless, and elated at the sight of me. I’m irked and wondering, why are they so breathless hiking slow as they were?

Well, this is why.

H saw me briefly, but didn’t hear me say I was hiking onward. So they took a few pictures and discovered I have seemingly vanished into thin air. They gaze down into the watery abyss known as the ocean, wondering if I’ve slipped and drowned (I cannot swim and am clumsy so it’s a reasonable assumption). They do not see my corpse floating anywhere (and I was nowhere near the edge when I vanished anyway) so they rule that out and assume someone has kidnapped me while they weren’t looking (also a reasonable assumption as I’m unobservant and would hardly notice anyone following me).

They split up. H hikes backwards. M hikes forward. Both intent on throwing hands on my behalf. M must’ve stopped just short of where I was taking a break before turning around. H hiked all the way back to the trailhead (which was a significant distance away) and asked the ranger there if she had seen me. She had not.

Did I mention there is no cell service on this island?

M went far enough to run into Hiker Couple, who confirmed I was still among the free. M and H regrouped and hustled forward, eventually running into me. They were about two minutes from calling search and rescue as they legitimately thought somebody had kidnapped me and Hiker Couple had mistaken me for someone else.

Needless to say, I did not get to see the view from Duck Harbor Mountain, because we instead wisely choose to make it back to the boat on time. But I have some pretty awesome (and fit) friends. We’re all able to laugh about this now and I have since refrained from wandering off when hiking with others, less they think a Sasquatch has taken me hostage.

Anyway, 10/10. Definitely recommend visiting Acadia National Park in Maine.