Scary stuff

What about that lunar eclipse last night, huh? If you were in a part of the world that didn't see it, or had to go to bed early, the moon literally turned red. Which explains other, seemingly inexplicable events of last night around these parts.

In other bizarro-world news, I apparently stumbled into a scary movie this afternoon, but i guess it just wasn't my time, or the monster was sleeping, or something. Seriously.

I was out for my usual walk by the river, and I noticed a trail I had never seen before leading off the paved road and into the woods. The trees are about halfway through shedding their leaves at this point, so there was a solid canopy of orange and yellow leaves around and overhead, and a lovely carpet of them underfoot. I set off down the path optimistically, cheerfully muttering "Whose woods these are I think I know" to myself, because I'm a dork from a liberal arts college in New England.

Then, honest to god, there was a fork in the path. Neither branch looked more or less travelled, so I figured it would make no difference, and turned left. Which, as we all know, is a synonym for "sinister." After a few yards, the path dipped sharply downhill, apparently winding around the edge of some depression, maybe a small bog or pond.

As I reached the lowest level of the pit, I was faintly repulsed to find that there had, indeed, once been a pond or bog here, but it had turned to black mud, which had eventually dried up and formed a dark, cracked surface, like mudflats in the desert. There was a stand of large, dead trees in the dead bog, all spiking out of the mudcake in different directions. The path ended here; there was no path on the other side of the ex-bog.

Now, I suppose I had been pretty dumb up until this point, and I could almost hear the audience in my head yelling "Turn BACK! Turn BACK!!!" But I figured I had already laid eyes on the unholy bog of doom, and my fate was already sealed. I also figured I had a good chance, since I'm well out of the 18 to 25 year-old age bracket, and was wearing more than just my bra. Also as long as I didn't start running through the woods in a panic, branches scraping my face and tears streaking my cheeks.

So I calmly turned back up the winding path. The fact that I casually picked up a large stick at around this time and held it firmly at one end is NO indication of my emotions at the time, nor of my pulse rate. The last bit of the path before it turned back onto the road ran behind some small houses, most of which had old, rusted out tools and mowers lying about in the back yards. I reached the road.

Almost immediately, a white pickup truck came up behind me with two young guys in the front seats. They cruised slowly past me, staring at me. This was followed by two more pickup trucks with young fellas in 'em. More staring.

You think I'm making this up.

I think I might have stumbled into somebody's patch of weed.

A-WOOOOOO!!!!!!