The best part about college...

...is that you get to write about the most pointless shit. The following is what I turned in as a final essay for a class last semester. It's a funny storry about three friends (myself included) getting lost in the back woods of South Amherst.


It was 4 a.m. on a chilly spring morning when I came to the sudden realization that I had no idea where the hell I was.
The night began at a house near the rural back roads of South Amherst, five miles away from the glimmering lights and urban-style high-rise dorms of the UMass campus. I was with two friends, and we were drinking heavily into the night. Around 2 a.m. we realized that our ride back to the dorms had left us, and the buses had stopped running hours ago. The decision to walk came democratically.
“To hell with it!” yelled the Cowboy, gesturing wildly with a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. “We’re what, five miles away from campus? Let’s walk back!”
Unable to see beyond my inebriation, I seconded the motion enthusiastically.
“Of course we should walk back!” I sputtered. “Isn’t there a bike trail that leads directly to Amherst College up the road from here?”
“That’s what I heard,” the Bagger answered.
The intoxicated mind does not have any self-correcting mechanisms. To us, the idea of a five-mile stumble back to campus would amount to that of a great adventure. And why not? There was no better time to test our wilderness survival skills than while we were stone drunk and hopelessly unaware of the consequences. There was never a moment in which we doubted our decision. We were far too busy high-fiving each other and carrying on about how much fun we were going to have. With that, we poured ourselves one last drink for the road, and started off towards the bike path.
The bike path was only a few hundred yards away from the house. Although it was dark, out we managed to find our way to the entrance. The path was dark and windy, surrounded by water on one side and lined with trees on the other. As we walked we sipped our drinks graciously. The metronomic thud of the Cowboy’s boots on the pavement created a sense of tedium, as we were all in lockstep walking down a dark path seemingly leading into a black oblivion. Conversation had come to a gradual halt as we slowly began to realize how far we were from campus.
“Jesus Christ, we’ve been on this path for damn near an hour,” the Bagger said. “Are you sure it leads to Amherst college?”
Before anyone could answer, a shadowy figure darted out in front of us and made a loud splash as it jumped into the pond. Startled by the sudden commotion, the Cowboy lost his footing and fell hard onto the pavement. The Bagger and I stood frozen for a moment. Our eyes darted along the shadowy perimeter of the path looking for the bastard that scared us.
“What in God’s name was that?” I asked.
“Beats me,” the Bagger answered. “Whatever it was I hope it stays the hell away from us.”
“Maybe it was the giant rat that took out Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride,” I mused. “
The Bagger looked confused.
“You never saw that flick?” I asked.
“No…”
“What are you, simple?” I asked mockingly.
Our attention turned back to the Cowboy who was lying on the ground, groaning in pain. We helped him onto his feet and continued down the path.

We were still shaken up from our encounter with what we assumed was the giant rat from The Princess Bride. We walked cautiously down the path, prepared for whatever else might jump in our way.
More time passed and we grew impatient. There were no lights around us, and all that we could see ahead of us was more darkness. We came across an opening in the woods on the left side of the path. We walked over to it and discovered that it led to a road, which we assumed would connect us to route 116.
“Let’s take the road,” the Bagger suggested. “I don’t think this path is going to lead us anywhere.”
We sat for a moment. The Bagger was certainly on to something. The bike trail seemed endless, and although we were walking on it for over an hour, we didn’t feel any closer to campus. I was hesitant. None of us were sober enough at this point to accurately gauge where we were. It was the drunk leading the drunk. However I was all out of ideas so I put my trust in the Bagger. We would find out the following day that we were less than a quarter mile from Amherst College when we turned off the bike path.
We walked down the road for about a half hour. We could hear cars zipping by in the distance. After a few minutes, we saw a set of headlights coming toward us. The three of us stood on the side of the road in anticipation of the approaching vehicle. As the car neared, we raised our hands and began waving them in hopes that the early-morning traveler would take pity on a couple of hapless drunkards lost in the woods of South Amherst. Upon seeing us, the car accelerated and zoomed past us. I was furious.
“HEY!” I yelled. “Thanks a lot for the help, PRICK!”
I sat surprised for a moment.
“Did you see that?” I asked. “So much for depending on the kindness of strangers, eh Cowboy?”
No response.
“Cowboy?”
THUD!
I turned around to see that the Cowboy had fallen flat on his back.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” I muttered. “Bagger, help him up, huh?”
While the Bagger helped up the Cowboy I pondered our next move.
“Okay,” I began. “We started off back there, and now we’re here. I think if we continue in this direction, we’re bound to hit 116.”
The Bagger was studying the skyline. He pointed to a mountain in the distance.
“Is that the Mt. Holyoke mountain?” he asked.
“I didn’t know they had their own mountain,” the Cowboy answered as he dusted himself off. “My sister went there and she never said anything about a mountain.”
The Bagger scratched his head.
“That’s odd,” he said.
We made the unanimous decision to continue walking down the road, hoping that it would lead us to civilization.
I looked at my cell phone to check the time. 4 a.m. The first signs of sobriety came with the realization that we were a long way from home. All we had was a road that led to nowhere and impending sobriety that would make the rest of the walk unbearable. In the distance we saw a set of bright lights.
During a night in which the circumstances would become bleaker with each passing moment, the lights gave us the hope that perhaps we weren’t far from campus. After following the lights, we approached an old farmhouse that sat on top of a hill. The lights hung in the horizon just above a line of trees in the distance. We walked up the hill next to the house and saw that we would have to cut through a pasture to get to the lights. I looked at the Cowboy and the Bagger. They nodded as we began walking through the pasture with the Cowboy in the lead.
It was still dark out and we had difficulty seeing what was in front of us. The Cowboy came to a sudden stop.
“Whoa!” the Cowboy exclaimed, pointing to what appeared to be a trip wire six inches away from where we stopped. “This is an electric fence, don’t move.
Before we got a chance to figure out what to do, we heard a thundering crash and saw the outline of a large horse jump out of the shadows in front of us.
“RUN!” I yelled, more afraid of a shotgun-wielding farmer than of the horse.
The Bagger and I ran back towards the house in a dash. After a few seconds of running we noticed that the Cowboy had stumbled into a ditch and had fallen against the side of a barn.
“To hell with him!” I screeched. “Let’s get out of here!”
The Bagger and I made our way back to the street in front of the house. We waited for a few moments as the Cowboy limped down the hill and caught up with us. I plopped down on the curb and rested my face in the palms of my frozen hands. We sat in silence for a few minutes, until finally a car pulled up next to us.
“You boys look a little lost,” the driver said, holding back chuckles.
“Any idea how to get back to UMass?” we asked him.
“Well,” he started, “if you follow this road all the way down and take a left, and follow that road for about a mile, you’ll reach 116. From there I assume you know the way?”
We nodded and thanked him. The walk down the road was mostly silent. The novelty of being lost had faded with the drunkenness. We were now sober, cold and frustrated at how far we had walked in the wrong direction. After another hour of walking, we finally reached 116. We recognized the Hess station as we approached it. We were even further away from campus than when we started off. The lights we saw earlier were not coming from UMass, but rather from Hampshire College.
The Bagger and I spent a few minutes in the Hess mini mart buying coffee and snack cakes. The Cowboy walked in shortly after us and told us that he talked to a contractor that was doing work in downtown Amherst. The contractor was willing to give us a lift to the center of town. We happily accepted the ride and told him about what we went through over the past few hours. The contractor laughed.
“Sounds like you fellas had one hell of a night,” he told us.
I simply smiled and nodded, taking comfort in the fact that for the first time all morning, I was on my way home.