COLUMN: Stuck in the mud

I'm pretty sure that it could be 100 degrees outside for a straight week and I could still find a way to come inside with mud on my shoes and various part of my clothing. I'm not sure why, but I always find a way to dirty up the bottom of my shoes no matter what I'm doing.

I would probably get a lot more done if I didn't take the short cut from the office to the bank in an alley and spend about 15 minutes scrapping the mud off my shoes. I'm not sure what happened the other day, but mud ended up all over our car and I don't remember anyone actually stepping in mud. There were streaks of it by the glove box and I'm not quite sure how that could happen, but it did.

The mud in the car got me thinking about one of the more embarrassing moments of my life, and one that involved far more mud than the incident in the car.

When I was in college, a lot of my friends were musicians and I would often times tag along with them to various concerts across the western United States.

They were all in fledgling bands so they were not always the biggest shows in sold out venues, but it was still fun to see them perform even if it was in front of about 20 people who often times were just the members of the other bands playing.

On one occasion I accompanied my friends to a show in Grand Junction, CO., and it was a great road trip with lots of laughs and jamming out to music the entire way.

After the show, a few of us had a lot of energy, while others just wanted to get to the hotel and crash.

Trying to be nice and let people get some rest, a friend and I decided to wonder around Grand Junction. It turns out that our adventure was not fun at all and after walking around for about two hours we decided to head back and get to bed. The friend I was with had a huge mouth on him and it would often times get us in trouble. On the walk back a car had passed us and then turned around and approached us. The people in the car were a little sketchy and it made me nervous when they started to ask us questions. Rather than just walk away, my friend said some pretty crazy stuff to them and it made them mad. They got out of the car and while I wasn't scared at the time, my friend probably had his mouth write a check he couldn't cash and he started running. I started running too. The people followed and here I am at Midnight in an unfamiliar town running away from unfamiliar people. After about ten minutes at a dead sprint we could see the hotel, but the problem was there was a wooded area we would have to cross. About two minutes into the woods we came across what appeared to be a creek and what would be the final leg of our journey.

For some reason I made the decision to jump across first and this was a bad idea. I could no longer hear the people behind us, but I just wanted to be back at the hotel and away from the shenanigans my friend had gotten me into. I couldn't really see the creek well, but I figured leaping across would not be that big of a deal with a running start. Boy, was I wrong.

I did my best impression of a track star and as I was flying through the air I could tell I was not even going to come close to making the jump. I instead fell into a muck that I could only describe as a poor man's version of quicksand. I could barely move, and rather than helping me, my friend was on the ground laughing. I felt like I might sink in this and time stood still as moving a few feet seemed like it took hours. It smelled like a backed up toilet and I wasn't quite sure what I was actually sinking in. I thought this might be the end of me, I might perish in a pile of poop.

My friend would then walk around to a better point to cross and gave me a hand to help me out of this predicament. I was covered up to my neck in mud and when I stood on the ground it was dripping off me by the pound. I felt like I was 500 pounds as I tried to walk back to the hotel.

I did my best to take off as much clothing as I could, but I would still have to get into the hotel with a mess of mud. There were quite a few of us in a hotel room and as I walked in I could see I was leaving a trail everywhere. I had run to my bag to grab another shirt and walked by a friend sleeping on the floor. He was now covered.

It was getting so late I just cleaned up the best I could and went to bed.

At around six in the morning I awoke to someone screaming. "JACK, what on Earth did you do to the bathroom"?

Turns out I wasn't so great with cleaning up and the bathroom looked like a warzone. I did my best to clean up, but I still kind of feel bad for the housekeeper.

Every time I bring a little mud into the office, car, or house, I should always remember Grand Junction and realize it is not that bad.