Music Banter - View Single Post - The scariest ****ing thing you've ever seen.

**Exo** · 02-07-2018, 07:19 PM

Let's see...

Well, I watched 9/11 happen. That was polarizing. I grew up across the river so there wasn't the adrenaline of escape happening but I'd say the helplessness I felt watching it unfold led to a lot of serious issues I've struggled with over the years. Existentialism and apathy to be exact. Learned at age 13 that life is cruel and unfair and that it can end you at any second so why the f*ck bother with some things.

......

Walking into a squat house with headphones in because I'm an idiot almost gave me a serious heart attack. My job inspecting houses gave me a a very lax approach to new properties. I was careless. Walked into a room expecting it to be empty only to have a girl pop up off a mattress that was on the floor like a spring and scream. I screamed too. I never screamed so loud from surprise before. Then it just got sad. She was young and pretty once. Drugs. She started crying so I left fast. Still, that initial shock almost stopped my heart.

.......

My girlfriend at the time once fainted at an Opeth concert due to not having eaten pretty much all day and the venue being stuffed with smelly dudes who were hogging all the oxygen. I never saw a person actually faint before so my first thought was that something was very VERY wrong. I dragged her out of the crowd and it took me a full 8 minutes to get her to wake. During that time I had people yelling at me that she was just drunk while I yelled for somebody to call an ambulance. Nobody ever did. Thanks Philly. Anyway, the feeling that somebody you love is in serious trouble like that is something I'll never forget. I know better now but I serious thought she was dying for eight minutes.

.......

I'll end with the most recent scary feeling I guess. At least I think it's the most recent.

I was in the Catskills with a bunch of friends and we decided to take a very long hike. We mapped out eight mile stretch that we felt, at the time, would bring us right along the ridge that is adjacent to our cabin. Only reason we even thought we could do this was because our friend who owns the cabin, who is kind of a pathological liar, told us that the trail we were taking was in fact the trail next to the cabin. Wrong.

We ave ourselves about six hours before the sun went down to do it. Plenty of time. 80% of the hike went great until we got to a fork that wasn't on the map. We ended up going the wrong way and about an hour before sunset were convinced we had taken the wrong route and that we needed to double back. The problem with that was that by the time we got back to the fork it would be dark and we really did't know for certain the other way was correct. We all had summer clothing on and this was the end of August in the mountains. It got cold. Everybody had very minimal battery life on their phones. Some were dead. No flashlights. The person with the most battery life used the gps on his phone to locate us on a map but there were no indications of roads or landmarks. The cabin we stay at is in the middle of nowhere basically. Anyway, we decided to go off trail and bushwhack through the woods to the spot we all decided was where out cabin was. We estimated that spot by finding the nearest road on the map, remembering what road that was, and just estimating where our cabin was. I was't confident. They all were.

We spent the next hour walking through dense forest with downed trees we had to go around, sheer drops that we had to descend on our asses, and impassable segments we had to divert around. Every single minute of that hour or so I spent on the verge of a nervous breakdown because I was not confident we were going to get out. Were we going to die if we spent the night in the woods? Probably not. It only got down to the low 40's at night but it would have been a LONG night and who knows what could have happened?

We ended up stumbling across an old mine road that we decided to follow, mostly due to the fact that I was not letting anybody else make the f*cking decisions anymore. I told them I'm walking this way and that they should follow me but this is the way I'm going. We found the road at what you could call the end and some of us wanted to continue bushwhacking the direction we were going. I was confident that we'd find an actual road and just hoof it back to the cabin or stop at the nearest house. It was JUST light enough to see when we saw smoke from a fireplace and eventually a house. The owners were outside with their kids and we were able to secure a ride in their pickup truck back to our cabin.

The hour before the house was one of the most anxiety filled hours of my life. Being lost is awful. The relief of finding that house was something that I'll never forget though. We were all packed in the bed of the pickup just quietly staring at each other before somebody started laughing which eventually made us all laugh.

Bring a compass and a trail map hiking childrens.

02-07-2018, 07:19 PM	#176 (permalink)
Exo All day jazz and biscuits Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: NJ Posts: 7,359	Let's see... Well, I watched 9/11 happen. That was polarizing. I grew up across the river so there wasn't the adrenaline of escape happening but I'd say the helplessness I felt watching it unfold led to a lot of serious issues I've struggled with over the years. Existentialism and apathy to be exact. Learned at age 13 that life is cruel and unfair and that it can end you at any second so why the fck bother with some things. ...... Walking into a squat house with headphones in because I'm an idiot almost gave me a serious heart attack. My job inspecting houses gave me a a very lax approach to new properties. I was careless. Walked into a room expecting it to be empty only to have a girl pop up off a mattress that was on the floor like a spring and scream. I screamed too. I never screamed so loud from surprise before. Then it just got sad. She was young and pretty once. Drugs. She started crying so I left fast. Still, that initial shock almost stopped my heart. ....... My girlfriend at the time once fainted at an Opeth concert due to not having eaten pretty much all day and the venue being stuffed with smelly dudes who were hogging all the oxygen. I never saw a person actually faint before so my first thought was that something was very VERY wrong. I dragged her out of the crowd and it took me a full 8 minutes to get her to wake. During that time I had people yelling at me that she was just drunk while I yelled for somebody to call an ambulance. Nobody ever did. Thanks Philly. Anyway, the feeling that somebody you love is in serious trouble like that is something I'll never forget. I know better now but I serious thought she was dying for eight minutes. ....... I'll end with the most recent scary feeling I guess. At least I think it's the most recent. I was in the Catskills with a bunch of friends and we decided to take a very long hike. We mapped out eight mile stretch that we felt, at the time, would bring us right along the ridge that is adjacent to our cabin. Only reason we even thought we could do this was because our friend who owns the cabin, who is kind of a pathological liar, told us that the trail we were taking was in fact the trail next to the cabin. Wrong. We ave ourselves about six hours before the sun went down to do it. Plenty of time. 80% of the hike went great until we got to a fork that wasn't on the map. We ended up going the wrong way and about an hour before sunset were convinced we had taken the wrong route and that we needed to double back. The problem with that was that by the time we got back to the fork it would be dark and we really did't know for certain the other way was correct. We all had summer clothing on and this was the end of August in the mountains. It got cold. Everybody had very minimal battery life on their phones. Some were dead. No flashlights. The person with the most battery life used the gps on his phone to locate us on a map but there were no indications of roads or landmarks. The cabin we stay at is in the middle of nowhere basically. Anyway, we decided to go off trail and bushwhack through the woods to the spot we all decided was where out cabin was. We estimated that spot by finding the nearest road on the map, remembering what road that was, and just estimating where our cabin was. I was't confident. They all were. We spent the next hour walking through dense forest with downed trees we had to go around, sheer drops that we had to descend on our asses, and impassable segments we had to divert around. Every single minute of that hour or so I spent on the verge of a nervous breakdown because I was not confident we were going to get out. Were we going to die if we spent the night in the woods? Probably not. It only got down to the low 40's at night but it would have been a LONG night and who knows what could have happened? We ended up stumbling across an old mine road that we decided to follow, mostly due to the fact that I was not letting anybody else make the fcking decisions anymore. I told them I'm walking this way and that they should follow me but this is the way I'm going. We found the road at what you could call the end and some of us wanted to continue bushwhacking the direction we were going. I was confident that we'd find an actual road and just hoof it back to the cabin or stop at the nearest house. It was JUST light enough to see when we saw smoke from a fireplace and eventually a house. The owners were outside with their kids and we were able to secure a ride in their pickup truck back to our cabin. The hour before the house was one of the most anxiety filled hours of my life. Being lost is awful. The relief of finding that house was something that I'll never forget though. We were all packed in the bed of the pickup just quietly staring at each other before somebody started laughing which eventually made us all laugh. Bring a compass and a trail map hiking childrens. __________________ LastFM SUPREME POO BAH MODERATOR EXTRAORDINAIRE