A Walk to Remember

Last night started out as a typical Friday night at the beginning of the semester in Provo. My roommates and I went to a BBQ, followed by a quick Cafe Rio run and a little bit of dance party action.


Neither Danny or I particularly enjoy the awkward Provo dance party scene, so we decided to go on a little stroll so as to ease our stomaches because of the 5000 calories we had recently consumed from Cafe Rio. We left around 10 pm. It was slighty cool outside, but still really nice. Probably around 65 degrees.


So a walking we went, down the Provo River trail. We came to the first park and decided to stop and have a swinging sesh. Then, we started playing on the play set. It had a small tunnel, about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. It was the closest item on the playset to the swings. About, 10-20 ft away. As we were going through the tunnel, I got a really creeped out feeling and we heard some noises. The tunnel had about 6 big peeking holes in it. I dared to look out one. We were now accompanied by a GINORMOUS man in combat boots. He was on the swings, laughing hysterically with himself. He would randomly start talking to himself and changing up his voices. Homeboy was a real creeper, to say the least. He was also making these really crazy noises, hauking loogies, and making a weird hard sniffing noise. I still do not understand how he did not see us, especially since my shoes were sticking out of the end of the tunnel.



He would swing for a few minutes, and then stop for a few minutes and make that weird sniffing noise. I tried to sneak another peak. He had a white sack. The sniffing noise finally made sense when I realized he was doing crack.


An hour passed. I had to pee. The temperature had dropped aout 10 degrees. I had been holding myself in a side plank position for this entire time trying not to totally crush poor Danny. I got an idea! We just needed to text our friends and tell them to come here in a big group and be loud and then we could get out. We could also call the police! Hooray for cell phones! I reached in my pocket. Cell phone? Not a chance. Definitely sitting on my coffee table back at my apartment. I whispered in Danny's ear, "do you have your phone?" Negative. I layed my head down and tried to take a little nap. I fell asleep.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of heavy combat boots thumping through the playset ground. Thump thump thump. Thump. Thump Thump. My eyes popped wide open. Had he seen us?

The left side of my body was completely numb. I couldn't lift it or turn to look out the hole anymore, so Danny had to. He couldn't see the man anymore. Our chance to break free? Not likely. Just as we were getting ready to slide out of the tunnel, my body froze, and I said "wait." It really didn't even feel like it was me saying it. I looked up through the front of the tunnel, and saw the man standing about 4 feet away with his back turned toward us. Taking a pee. (This didn't really help my situation considering I had been holding it for about 2 hours at this point.)

He must have heard a little noise from us, and he turned around. It felt as if he were staring directly at me. My entire body was shaking. It was freezing, my bladder was about to burst, and now the crack man was staring at me and my body was numb and stuck.

I am still not sure if he saw us, but for whatever reason he went back to his gay swing. Who swings for this long? I think we were both completely irritated at this point. How long would we be stuck in here? Was this dude going to kill us? I got so cold I could no longer whisper anything to Danny. My entire frame was shaking. For a moment I was honestly considering just letting myself pee so I could get warm.

We had both been praying to ourselves "please get us out of here... please make this man leave" we tried to whisper prayers out loud.

It felt like we were going to be alone on this one.

The freakiest part to me were his sudden bursts of laughter. It felt like he was laughing at us, like he knew we were there.

Everytime the man would take a break from swinging (it was frequently, so he could huff) it sounded like he was going to get up and leave, and then our hopes were crushed as we heard him pump his legs again and continue swinging. It was the most miserable feeling.

I was getting claustrophobic . Both of our bodies were numb. There was no where to move. I had lost all track of time. I had no idea how long we had been there. The only thing I knew, was that with every breath I took, I felt my bladder getting fuller and fuller. I pushed myself beyond my limit of holding it. I could not do it anymore.

I said a quick prayer again. Out of the other side of the tunnel, I saw another creepy man heading our way. Probably to use the bathroom as well. I figured we were less likely to get attacked with another dude there, but who knows, maybe they were friends.

Please don't let this guy kill us, I have to get out of here. Send your angels, we are out of here. And I told Danny what I thought. Let's just get up and leave.

I finally mustered up the courage, slid out of the back of the tunnel. My arms and legs were both dead asleep. I could hardly stand, let alone walk and especially not run. Oh, P.S. i have shin splints so it hurts to walk anyways, but that was the last of my worries. I didn't have time to get my shoes, or even see where they were. I just started bending and lifting my knees and attempting to walk as quickly as I could.

We made it safely out of the park!

I just hugged Danny. I honestly felt so thankful to be alive, we had finally made it through the worst 6 hours of my life. And also slightly angry and the crazy army crack man in the park.

The pee factor was really taking its toll. We had about a mile to my house. I don't know if anyone has held it this long. I definitely set a personal record for holding it the longest. We made it to a gas station. Oh, it was closed. Why would it be open. Freak.

I held myself the rest of the walk or shall i say gallup home. I had never been so happy to see my apartment complex as I was last night. I flew my front door open, ran to the bathroom, and checked the time. 4:30 AM!! we had left at 10.
I was irrate. I was suppose to leave at 5:30 AM to run a marathon that I have trained for all summer. Not going to happen. It was ok, I prob should not have run on shin splints anyways.

The moral of the story.. always use the bathroom before you leave the house.