Overheard in a Campground. Then, Hiking With an Idiot.

I was backpacking recently with my friend Lukie, and on our last night a father and son arrived and set up at a nearby campsite. They were unobtrusive, so Lukie and I spent the evening relaxing, chatting, and doing our best to eat the mountain of food we had brought with us.

However, I was awoken painfully early (about 7 a.m.) by a loud, incessant bickering. Apparently the duo wasn't a father and son. In fact, it seemed to be just an unhappy, unstable, and rapidly disintegrating relationship between two bums.

Listening to them haggle was a little like listening to two stoned toddlers. I covered my head with my pillow and prayed that it would end soon - but it was not to be.

Young Bum: Hey, man. You...you gotta relax.

Old Bum: I'm...You're the one gettin' all hyped up over nuthin'. I'm just, uh...

Young Bum: Whatever, I don't need you, man. Fuckin' chill out.

Old Bum: Me chill? I'm just...you're not...I was just sayin' you're not doin' it right.

Young Bum: Why you gotta be all up in my shit? Fuck off.

Old Bum: Fuck off? Fuck you, man. You don't know shit.

Young Bum: You don't know shit.

Old Bum: I'm just...you're, uh...

Owlblink.

It must have gone on for thirty minutes. It would gradually die, then one of them would mumble something, and it would start back up again - stupid, unintelligible, petty, and loud.

Eventually:

Young Bum: Whatever, I don't need you. I'm leaving...fuck.

Old Bum: Oh yeah? Well...enjoy your conversations with...yourself! Yeah.

And then, blissfully - silence.

Lukie and I woke up at about eleven to find both of the bums gone from their campsite, ate a thoroughly mediocre breakfast of instant oatmeal, and began planning our route back to the camp headquarters. At about noon, somebody straggled into camp. It was Young Bum. He looked about 19, with shoulder length greasy blonde hair, a deeply revolting assortment of whiskers (I don't want to dignify them with the term "beard") and reeking of marijuana. Apparently he had been unable to follow the simple trail signs and had been lost since seven in the morning, during which time he had somehow wandered everywhere in the park except the trailhead.

Anyway, he looked thoroughly bedraggled and close to tears, and Lukie and I felt so bad for him we told him we'd take him to the headquarters - so we broke camp, packed everything, and left.

Young Bum's name was actually "Jade," and he was only 17 and going into his senior year at high school. Apparently Old Bum was Jade's parents' landlord, a friendless douchebag who needed a camping buddy for an exhausting 10-day trek around the San Francisco Bay. So naturally, Jade's parents pawned him off to the old guy and sent them on their merry way. Jade, a veteran of the Youth Detention Facility with a felony drug conviction securely under his belt, then treated us to an hour and a half of whining and bitching about how his feet were wet, how Old Bum was so stupid and needed to smoke more weed, how hard school was, how his feet were wet, how all the weed was gone, how stupid his parents were, how his feet were wet, how he failed geometry because the teacher was stupid, how it was getting harder to go off campus and smoke a bowl during lunchtime, how his feet were wet, and a lot of severely ill-informed analysis of California's drug laws.

This experience didn't really teach me anything, except to reinforce my conviction that I dislike irritating people. And that sometimes helping people screws you over.

Actually, it did make me grateful that I have my life in order, relatively. Lukie and I had been talking about college, and careers, and how difficult everything was. But after a few hours with Jade The Delinquent, my life could not seem better.

More on marijuana soon.