LEDAdd1ct
Flashlight Enthusiast
There is a another thread called Embarrassing confessions which deals with personal type confessions of lights and gear carried, but I thought it might be fun to come up with a group therapy type thread concerning lighting humiliations in front of friends, family, and coworkers. My opening anecdote concerns both not being prepared and not knowing my route, but I think the accompanying deflation of my ego is worth sharing.
Okay, the story:
My friend had work in NYC early one morning a summer or two ago, and I asked him to go on a hike late the previous afternoon. We went to hike at a place we'd been to a few times before, and the hike had a path leading in to the foot of a hill. Usually, we hiked in that path from the car, hiked up the hill, enjoyed the view of the surrounding lakes and Hudson River, and turned around, hiking back down the way we'd came and back down the path to the car. However, I was told (or suspected, I can't now recall which) that there was a different way to complete the hike, where after hiking to the top of the hill we could walk down the far side of the mountain and loop back, instead of hiking right back down the way we'd came and retracing our steps. I thought this sounded like a wonderful idea, and in short order persuaded my friend of the same.
When we got to the top, we had maybe 45 minutes of good daylight left until dusk. Right before we began to walk down the trail we had not taken, my friend turned to me, and looking for reassurance, asked:
"I have work tomorrow morning early. I just want to make sure you are absolutely certain we'll be back before too late, before it is dark."
"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure—no problem," I said hastily, "we'll be fine."
Well, when we got to the bottom, we came to a T intersection, and having lost our sense of direction, we couldn't figure if it was a left or a right back to the car. Had it been noon or shortly thereafter, it would not have been a big deal; however, when we got to the T the last vestiges of dusk were departing. We made a left.
It was the wrong way.
We walked 1.86 miles until we reached a highway which we realized we should not have reached, and had to turn around and walk 1.86 miles back the way we'd came to return to the T, plus .87 miles the way we were supposed to go had we made a right at the T. We wound up walking 4.59 miles in the pitch black, in thick, heavy woods. Squinting as hard as we could, we could barely make out ten feet ahead of us. Every now and then, my friend would open up his cell phone screen, and the light emitted temporarily blinded us, so we avoided it unless there was a particularly uneven patch of trail where we could not trust the normal pattern of one foot following the other. I am pretty sure I owned my E01 back then, and it would have been plenty bright enough to see by given the ambient illumination. The trail was dirt in some parts, cobblestones in others, but the woods were deep, the stones loose, and the moon on loan to a different solar system. I kept my friend up later than he should have been, and ate my humble pie the whole way back to the car.
Moral of the story:
Always, always, always carry a light with you, even something small and "dim" and not the latest and greatest technology. Being the flashoholic, it was both embarrassing and humiliating not having a light, and I felt terrible about keeping my friend out late when he had work early the next day. He has since forgiven me, but now we both always take flashlights. The CPF mantras of "Buy both!" and "One is none, two is one," are not lost here, and the day hikes starting early and with the best intentions of arriving home well before sundown can be foiled by user error, injury, unexpected happenings, or, in a positive light, the desire to linger longer in a beautiful patch of forest.
In line with the thread title, I was humiliated in front of my friend, but more than that, I was humiliated in front of myself.
What's your tale of lighting humiliation in front of friends, family, or coworkers?
Okay, the story:
My friend had work in NYC early one morning a summer or two ago, and I asked him to go on a hike late the previous afternoon. We went to hike at a place we'd been to a few times before, and the hike had a path leading in to the foot of a hill. Usually, we hiked in that path from the car, hiked up the hill, enjoyed the view of the surrounding lakes and Hudson River, and turned around, hiking back down the way we'd came and back down the path to the car. However, I was told (or suspected, I can't now recall which) that there was a different way to complete the hike, where after hiking to the top of the hill we could walk down the far side of the mountain and loop back, instead of hiking right back down the way we'd came and retracing our steps. I thought this sounded like a wonderful idea, and in short order persuaded my friend of the same.
When we got to the top, we had maybe 45 minutes of good daylight left until dusk. Right before we began to walk down the trail we had not taken, my friend turned to me, and looking for reassurance, asked:
"I have work tomorrow morning early. I just want to make sure you are absolutely certain we'll be back before too late, before it is dark."
"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure—no problem," I said hastily, "we'll be fine."
Well, when we got to the bottom, we came to a T intersection, and having lost our sense of direction, we couldn't figure if it was a left or a right back to the car. Had it been noon or shortly thereafter, it would not have been a big deal; however, when we got to the T the last vestiges of dusk were departing. We made a left.
It was the wrong way.
We walked 1.86 miles until we reached a highway which we realized we should not have reached, and had to turn around and walk 1.86 miles back the way we'd came to return to the T, plus .87 miles the way we were supposed to go had we made a right at the T. We wound up walking 4.59 miles in the pitch black, in thick, heavy woods. Squinting as hard as we could, we could barely make out ten feet ahead of us. Every now and then, my friend would open up his cell phone screen, and the light emitted temporarily blinded us, so we avoided it unless there was a particularly uneven patch of trail where we could not trust the normal pattern of one foot following the other. I am pretty sure I owned my E01 back then, and it would have been plenty bright enough to see by given the ambient illumination. The trail was dirt in some parts, cobblestones in others, but the woods were deep, the stones loose, and the moon on loan to a different solar system. I kept my friend up later than he should have been, and ate my humble pie the whole way back to the car.
Moral of the story:
Always, always, always carry a light with you, even something small and "dim" and not the latest and greatest technology. Being the flashoholic, it was both embarrassing and humiliating not having a light, and I felt terrible about keeping my friend out late when he had work early the next day. He has since forgiven me, but now we both always take flashlights. The CPF mantras of "Buy both!" and "One is none, two is one," are not lost here, and the day hikes starting early and with the best intentions of arriving home well before sundown can be foiled by user error, injury, unexpected happenings, or, in a positive light, the desire to linger longer in a beautiful patch of forest.
In line with the thread title, I was humiliated in front of my friend, but more than that, I was humiliated in front of myself.
What's your tale of lighting humiliation in front of friends, family, or coworkers?
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Needless to say after the wife laughing for me bringing an EMPTY light, I promptly ordered a few more 18650's.
