I Survived

My in-laws live in a beautiful home in southwestern Utah that overlooks miles of bluffs and mesas.  When we lived with them one summer about 6 years ago, we would hike and climb together all the time, so I was basically a pro.  One evening, probably around 6 or 7 I thought I'd go for a little run up to this particular bluff that we had climbed as a family the week before.  Of course, once I got there I looked up and thought, "I can totally climb this thing by myself".

And I did.

It was a bit like a climbing wall, without any large surface area to stand on, only small crevices and protruding rocks.

It was such a feeling of accomplishment to stand at the top, with the stars twinkling above me and the moon illuminating the desert below me.

But after a few minutes it struck me that it was dark.  Really, full-blown night sky dark. How long had I been climbing?  According to my iPod I had been gone almost 2 hours.

Holy crap.

I walked to the edge but looking down now it looked completely vertical and I could only see about 10 feet in front of me.

I think I started crying right then, and I did the only logical thing I could think of.

I sat down and waited for someone to come save me.

I waited and waited and waited.  It got darker and darker. At this point I had been gone for 4 hours.

Eventually I realized that no one knew where to look for me and unless I somehow got down I would probably die (or be forced to sleep out there, which in my mind = death).

I thought about the search party finding my body and my family, devastated. I imagined the girl who would start off bringing Spouse meals, casually mention her love of children, then one night. finding Spouse hitting the bottle and cursing God for taking me, would wrap him in her Jezebel arms and comfort him in his time of need.

 Not today.
 

Basically feeling my way down and pep talking myself through it, I climbed closer and closer to the ground.  I paused to catch my breath after about an hour of blind climbing, when I hear the sound of a car.  I turned my head and strained my eyes and there was my Spouse in the passenger seat of a truck, shotgun in hand, looking for me.  He was too far to see me and in my last act of desperation, I jumped.

It was a really dramatic move on my part, so I was a smidge let-down to discover that I was about 2 feet off the ground.

At first I was all, "Isn't this kind of funny?" And Spouse was all, "Not really".  But he's come around and we can finally laugh about it.

*Let it be known that if something ever happens to me I DO want Spouse to be happy, but that happiness should NOT involve a vagina.