Once Upon a Muddy Night

This past Friday started out pretty chill and ended up with Stacey & I laughing hysterically. She called me around 9:00 to see if I wanted to hang out a bit and we started talking about the gorgeous weather outside and how we could take advantage of it at so late an hour. Well, there's this amazing lookout point up the hill from my house that overlooks the whole city. The builder discovered it when they were surveying the land and decided to pour a slab of cement and put a couple of benches up there for the neighborhood to enjoy. I thought it would be fun to run to the store and grab some ice cream and head up to that cozy spot and enjoy the stars. The minor detail that I forgot was the fact that we had a major downpour earlier that morning, and because I live in a new subdivision, there's still a lot of mud where grass has yet to be planted.

So, we take off, get our ice cream, head back to my place and grab a flashlight and spoons. We walk outside and it finally dawns on me that we had rain that morning and the ground is going to be a bit soft. This didn't deter me too much at this point because the builder had created a nice trail up to the lookout with mulch and I figured that wouldn't be too bad. The only problem is that from the sidewalk to the mulch trail, there's about 4 feet of mud. So, we walked back and forth, trying to figure out what would be the most solid piece of ground to venture onto...and of course we thought that if we just ran quickly, it wouldn't be quite so bad. So, I took off.

I start running and immediately my shoe sinks into the mud, but since I was running (and not wearing a shoe that was "strapped on" in any way), my foot just slid right out as my body kept moving forward. Finally I stop as I'm standing ankle-deep in mud, now laughing hysterically. I can't find my shoe! I've got the ice cream, spoon & flashlight in my hands, so I toss those to Stacey (who was smart enough to see how "successful" I would be before venturing out) and we search for my shoe...which we find, submerged in mud. I have to walk back through to get it, which makes me even muddier.

I finally get to the grass and try to "rub off" the mud in it, only to be quickly reminded that they mowed the day before and instead of the mud coming off in the grass, the grass clippings were caking onto my muddy foot, which caused us to laugh even harder. So here I am, holding my muddy shoe with my one muddy foot, figuring out how I'm even going to get inside to rinse off. So, Stacey runs into the house, grabs a plastic bag and we wrap my foot. By this point our ice cream is beginning to melt, so after taking pictures and now worn out from laughing, we decided to just plop down on the front porch and enjoy our ice cream there.

Later on we went inside to rinse off and I figured the kitchen was the closest, so that would work, but have you ever tried to hoist your foot into the kitchen sink?! It's very awkward! Ah, so anyway, no lookout point for us, but a great story and funny pictures - and a ruined pair of shoes made for a more memorable night anyway.