Lost In The Woods: The Rant.

So.. sorry if this sounds overly dramatic. However, I am extremely angry, so I must express it somehow. Yelling about it to my parents isn't a good idea when my dad just got rid of his headache. Arrrgh. I'm trying to calm down and not blow this out of proportion, but it is just SO HARD.

We went out to a ranch owned by a youth leader in my youth group for Halloween. We were going to do a scavenger hunt over at least 30 acres. And yes, I do know how big of a spot that is. I'm not exaggerating. It was probably bigger, but I'm downscaling it so I won't exaggerate. I'm NOT EXAGGERATING. AT ALL.

We had one weak flashlight. One hour to get 10 flags. One map [that was NOT accurate. I've ridden some of the land on my horse, and that map was not right, I'm telling you!! Courtney said it wasn't right either!]. And besides Courtney and myself, two other teammates. Who were not helpful, kind of creepy, and kept making sexual innuendos that made us very uncomfortable. Oh... and one of them pulled out a cigarette and lit it... in the middle of a bunch of dry, brittle trees and dead leaves. Courtney almost had an asthma attack. She's allergic to smoke. Yeah. It wasn't good.

I was proud of myself for not getting creeped out. However... we were following a clear trail [about four people wide], that we saw on the map [well, the crappy map], and we were looking for a HUGE clearing to a pond. [about a 2 acre pond. Hard to miss.] However, we kept walking, and there was no clearing. I mentioned that no one had jumped out at us to try to scare us, so we must be too far away. We might want to go back. But, the guys wanted to try THIS path. The clearing had to be just beyond it, they were sure! At this point NONE of it looked familiar to me, so I was slightly worried. And the guys held our only flashlight, so we kind of had to follow, unless we wanted to sit in the dark.

Well, the hunt was supposed to last an hour. We didn't hear the air horn blast that was supposed to signal the end of the hunt. We checked our only, dying phone at 11:30, realizing we should have been back at 10:30. Problem. We didn't know HOW to get back. I screamed. LOUD. No one heard me. We had enough juice in the phone to make 3 short phone calls, then it died. So, at least they KNEW we were missing now.

They hadn't even missed us!

Then I get in a shouting match with one of the guys. If you know me at all... I don't make a fuss about stuff, even if I'm upset, unless I really know you. I didn't know him at all. However... he was trying to walk off, with our only flashlight. I let him know that he was not going anywhere. We were sitting on a small concrete DAM. In the middle of nowhere. First rule of getting lost... STAY PUT. Common sense. What did he say? "That's a stupid rule."
I said, "NO. It is NOT a stupid rule BECAUSE IT WORKS. COURTNEY AND I ARE STAYING PUT. YOU ARE STAYING PUT. NO ONE IS LEAVING!"
Courtney oh-so-helpfully added that she would darn well sleep on that dam if thats how long we had to wait until someone found us. I concurred. Still, he tried to walk off. I was about to pull out the senority card [because I was SURE I was at least 3 years older than him] when we heard a 4 wheeler. We thought it was Stacy, one of our youth leaders. So we yelled to get 'her' attention.
Turns out it was a neighbor. He thought we were drunks partying on his property in the middle of the night on Halloween. He said he was about to bring out his gun.
I would NOT have gone with this guy if he hadn't volunteered info about some of the adults in our youth group. Then we borrowed his phone, called our leaders, and said he was going to lead us back to civilization.

All in all.... we got back TWO HOURS after we were supposed to. I've been walking in the pitch-black woods for THREE HOURS. With sticker bushes, and fallen trees. I'm surprised I hadn't sprained my ankle while I was lost out there.

Oh, and it was lovely. In the middle of all this, the guys were making innuendos and getting in our personal space, making us generally uncomfortable. Not a fun night. I didn't want to be that one person who ruins the night for everyone else because they aren't happy... but usually that one person WASN'T LOST IN THE WOODS FOR OVER TWO HOURS, IN THE PITCH DARK, WITH A DEAD PHONE, AFRAID OF BEING RAPED.

*deep breath*
Now, my non-confrontational side is coming back to me. In stressful situations it goes away, so I can handle the situation. Now its coming back. My mom said she's going to give my youth pastor what-for, but now I'm kinda like... 'ehhh... don't rock the boat too much!' Because I hate being a trouble to people. I hate it. But all I can think of is... what if a group who would have gotten a LOT more freaked out had been the ones to get lost? What if they hadn't had a phone at all, even though we had one that was almost dead... it was better than none at all. I mean... no one noticed we were missing, and one of the guys had a girlfriend who should have noticed. My other friends should have noticed. Courtney's sister should have noticed. We had a deacon's daughter and the pastor's daughter lost in the woods for goodness' sake!

Okay. Really. I'm calming down now... I promise. :)
I'm waiting on a biscuit to bake [at 2 in the morning, I know] because it is my comfort food. And I need some comfort right now.
The thing that made me the most angry, though, was how no one but my mother & Stacy seemed to care all that much about us getting lost for two hours. No one noticed we were lost. Now I'm sore, tired, and hungry.
I think I'm done now. Too exhausted, finally, to be angry anymore. At least the guy I kinda have a crush on asked what happened, and seemed interested, even though he didn't really seem concerned. Thats one more person who cared. I mean, I expected half of them to just laugh at us, but I did also expect genuine concern from more than 2 adults and 2 other youth.

Oh. I also missed out on seeing the Haygoods sneak peak thing. I was traipsing through the woods, lost. Hope your Halloween was better than mine!

Tina