A River Runs Through It

Sometimes we are subjected to the worst date ever, and sometimes we are the cause of the worst date ever. My first job out of college was pretty lame, but the thing that kept me going back each day was this cute, blond Canadian girl. Our relationship started from conversations at the copy machine to lunches and daily conversations in each other’s cubicles. I finally invited her on a rafting trip I was going on with some friends, which I thought would be the perfect first date. For lunch that day, I went down to the work cafeteria and bought myself the Friday Special: the Super Burrito.  As usual, it tasted great and filled me up. At the end of the day we headed out for the three-hour drive and life was perfect, until about a half hour from the campsite. 

At that point my stomach started doing things I had only seen in movies. Twisting left, twisting right and bubbling like a witches pot. I quickly pulled over to the side of the road ran out of the car and into the bushes. After a few more stops with similar results we made it to the campsite. But by this time I was hanging on by a thread and my symptoms had moved from throwing up to extreme abdominal pain. She was worried for me, but was slightly annoyed when she had to figure out how to put up the tent, while I lay on the ground writhing in pain.

Right about midnight things went from bad to worse. I woke up to an experience similar to throwing up, however from a different part of the body. Being that we didn’t have proper facilities, I had to wash myself in the river, naked and dispose of that set of clothing. Too embarrassed to go back into the tent, I stumbled to the top of the hill by the Porta Potties and slept on the ground, all the while fearing that a mountain lion was going to drag my emaciated body away for an early morning breakfast.

As I was in no condition to drive, she was to be the pilot for the three-hour ride back. Of course the drive may have been shorter if we weren’t stopping at a gas station every 20 miles so that I could remember that Super Burrito I had eaten the day before. I know you are thinking that in the end it probably all worked out and that we looked back on the incident and laughed about it. Unfortunately there is no recovering from bad burritos or bad dates.