3 short near-death stories

The Ditch

When I was a teenager I headed over to a friend’s house on a hot summer night for a party and woke up in a ditch the next morning two miles away just as the sun was about to come up.

You’d think that it was the typical parents away on vacation opportunity for a school-aged party with a dedicated lookout for law enforcement. Quite the contrary. I’m fairly certain they were on the main floor upstairs tossing back a few drinks of their own and just letting us kids be kids.

Heck, they probably bought the beer keg.

It was kind of like the 80s movie Risky Business without the hookers. Then again, I wasn’t old enough to drive. How would I know what a hooker looked like?

Everyone’s parents said that we could all stay with friends for the night. Technically, we weren’t breaking any agreement.

Their father had parked a camper on a small piece of property across the street from the lake.

The plan was that a few of us would just crash there after the party. The odd thing was, the tall grass and sand bed that I’d just woken up from was a couple hundred feet before you would arrive at said camper.

Did I get dropped off just short of it and say screw it, this is as good a place as any? Did I even get dropped off, or did I actually walk to what could have easily been my grave if I hadn’t woken up?

I picked myself up along with my hangover and started walking along the paved road. There was dead calm on the lake and total silence all around. It was only as I approached our sleep venue of choice that I recognized it as the destination that I was looking for.

I opened the door and saw what looked like two dead bodies which turned out to be my friends who had also partaken in the keg ‘o beer. They were alive. I can confidently attest to that as I’ve seen images of them as grown-ups on social media over the past few years.

I claimed a table, or a bench, or whatever the thing was that had a cushion on it and passed back out.

I can’t remember a single thing beyond that moment, although I can still feel the headache decades later every time I think about that night.

I no longer drink keg beer unless it’s served at a bar and I’m certain of who has or hasn’t been sucking directly on the nozzle while someone pumps it up to max pressure. I also don’t agree to sleep in anyone’s camper at the lake anymore unless there’s a pillow and blanket waiting in the ditch.

I’m still on the fence about hookers and who may or may not be one.

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The Beach

There were around twenty of us who hung out together most of that summer at the campground near my house.

Someone decided that it would be a great idea for us to all grab sleeping bags and crash on the beach. Sure, why not? It seemed like a good idea on a hot August night.

Then came the rain, the thunder, and the lightning.

I’m not talking about a light rain that makes you scurry from your car to the front door. I’m talking about a biblical event where Noah himself is looking down on you and wondering why you didn’t get in the fucking boat when he told you to.

Just like my previous ditch nap, I slept like a baby.

For a moment it felt like someone was pouring an endless bucket of warm water on my entire being. I have to assume that was my dream state just before I actually woke up.

The reality as my eyes opened felt like water from a large fire hose pelting my face and body directly from above.

Someone hated me.

Is that you, Noah?

It was strange. I looked around to see who needed rescuing only to quickly learn that I was alone. Not another water-soaked soul around.

I still question taking the time to grab my drenched sleeping bag while running off of the beach as the next bolt of lightning turned the sand next to me into glass.

I rounded the corner to the front of the row of campers that shared a common covered patio. It extended the entire length of my asshole friends who were sleeping soundly.

I had some questions.

I chose to find a vacant picnic table, get some sleep, and revisit my curiosity in the morning.

As everyone awoke, the conversation started.

Apparently, when the heavens opened up someone yelled, “Every man for himself!”

Clearly, every man didn’t hear the instructions because he was fucking sleeping while every other man, woman, and child ran for shelter.

Left for dead, I’m fairly confident that I survived the ordeal because I’ve seen images of myself as a grown-up on social media over the past few years.

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The Girl

Shortly after the great flood of nineteen-eighty-something, I’d begun testing my newly discovered baseball skills with a girl that I’d met at the same campground.

I was pretty fond of her and I was about to learn the next morning that the feelings were mutual.

The teenage night on the beach ended abruptly somewhere between second and third base. There was no way that I could concentrate on my game with her father hollering her name like that.

C’mon man, can’t you see we’re busy here?

She was apparently out later than allowed and heeded the warning of my would-be killer had he come looking for her rather than shouting out to his innocent princess in the night.

She went in and I looked for a place to rest my head.

Spending so much time among the summer visitors gave me the opportunity to get to know everyone.

As I joined the last of the diehards in the early morning hours while they polished off their drinks, one of them offered me a spare spot in his trailer.

Barely keeping my eyes open and recently blue-balled thanks to dear old dad, I gladly accepted so that I could just go to sleep.

The morning came quickly and everyone within earshot was woken up by my sister yelling my name from the running car stationed in the general vicinity of my temporary sleeping quarters.

I say yelling, I’m sure she was just trying to speak clearly so that the correct “little bastard” appeared for the ride home that he didn’t remember asking for.

I made my way outside toward door number two, aka the back seat of the car. It was then that the look on my sister’s face verified the reciprocity of the girl’s feelings toward me.

I was wearing shorts and holding my T-shirt in my hand.

I can only equate what I must have looked like to me having been in a horrible fight with a vacuum cleaner. With wounds specifically around the neck and chest area, I clearly was the loser of the battle.

The sheer amount that my sister’s jaw dropped is still embedded in my mind.

I’d say that it was a look of disapproval and disgust, but was she truly one to talk?

I can’t be sure.

I do seem to recall that she had grown up in the same house near the same campground mere years prior. The difference? No older brother to so politely offer her a ride home after a moonlit evening on the beach.

I’m quite sure that she survived her reaction to my teenage walk-of-shame along with her disappointment in my lack of appliance-fighting skills at such a young age.

In fact, I’m certain of it as I’ve seen images of her as a grown-up on social media over the past few years.