If you could had the choice between hiking and grocery shopping, which would you choose? I'll bet you a figurative dollar that nine times out of ten the answer will be 'hiking'.
Now give me that dollar. I didn't. On a retreat the other week, I was given the option of hiking or going into town to restock our kitchen. Never let it be said that I am a thrill-seeker; my decision was made within a matter of minutes. I chose to go with a few friends to the store while the rest of the group spent the day climbing rocks and admiring vistas. The trailblazers looked at our group like we were insane. What kind of person voluntarily chooses to look at food when all of the forest is before you? Friends and acquaintances temporarily shunned me - or begged me to be a normal teenager and come with them. Tall tales and inside jokes would be in abundance when they came back. Treetops and idyllic joy. Teenagers and instant jaw-droppers. As tantalizing as it sounded, I still refused. Do I regret my choice? Not a whit.
Hiking, hanging out, goofing off - I'll be the first to admit that these things can be a blast. But I also know that there are times when I need quiet; need the relative normalcy of a simple shopping trip. That was what I was expecting when we left. A nice, staid, low-key scavenger hunt for the items on our list. Wrong.
Honestly, I can't remember when I've ever had more fun in a grocery store. Two of my friends took half the list, and a leader and I set out to find the other items. I can't adequately relate the frustration, panic, and uncertainty of choosing one type of cake mix over the other. Seriously: you have to figure out how many mixes you need, then choose a brand, and then a flavor, and then a flavor within that flavor (who knew there could be so many types of vanilla cake?!). It's cake, people! Neither can I satisfactorily portray the look on my leader's face when he saw how many different types of chip dip my friends had gathered. There were no fewer than eighteen varieties. I think we're a little spoiled if we have that much dip to pick from. The traffic jam we caused, guffawing over the ridiculousness of the situation, took two or three tries to clear up. The process of selecting ice cream took a good ten minutes - enough time for one of my friends to pick up lots of new, unwanted admirers. Lesson, dear readers - don't wave at strange middle-aged men. Ever. Deciding what was absolutely necessary and what could wait left everyone breathless. Cap'n Crunch is apparently more important than orange juice - go figure. Eventually we purchased what we needed and vacated the premises. At the end of the day, we weren't as tired as everyone else (though I'd say we got the same amount of exercise, running around the store, wouldn't you?) And I'm fairly sure that, out of the entire week, our little expedition was the highlight for all of us. That store will never be the same again.
What made it fun? Maybe it was the fact that everyone was a tad delirious from a week of going to bed at 3 am. Maybe it was because the four of us were doing something no one else wanted to do. Maybe it was that we were determined to have just as much fun - and more - as the hikers. I think it was a combination of these and one thing else: when you're with a group of people you love spending time with, anything and everything can turn into an adventure. Even cake mix and dip.
