A Four-Month Getaway Weekend

Dear Diary,

I live in a cabin somewhere in the mountains of the State of New York with a new friend named Todd, a slacker-looking, thirty-something dude with an overgrown mop-top haircut.

I ran away from my newly pregnant wife over four months ago and haven’t looked back since. She was angry with me for 3 major reasons. These were:

1) Pretending to still be employed for most of the summer

2) Lying about being promoted to a position where I made unbelievable amounts of cash

3) Telling her to quit her job, get pregnant, and max out all our credit

Once my wife discovered the truth I booked it, ending up here in the wilderness where I’ve been living with Todd in a cabin with no power, running water, fireplace, insulation, or roof. Basically it’s a hunting cabin that burned down decades ago but half a wall still stands and we sleep against it at night in one big garbage bag, holding on to one another in an attempt to fight off hypothermia. I also wear the garbage bag during the day since I have no clothes, having stripped down to my boxers while bolting from my wife.

Last night, I had a hard time getting to sleep.

TODD: Stop rolling around. You keep moving the garbage bag and waking me.

ME: I can’t live like this anymore, Todd. It’s been four months. And there’s nothing to do here but hang out against this wall. And all I’ve eaten is the mushrooms and weeds that you find. I’m starving, Todd. And, goddamnit, I need a shower. My hair’s all greasy, and in some spots, it’s rock hard.

TODD: When we decided to move up here in the mountains, you told me that you’d help with gathering food and hunting but you haven’t done a thing.

ME: Living here wasn’t a decision we made. We got stuck here after getting kicked out of that truck that picked us up last summer because we couldn’t stop giggling.

TODD: I wasn’t laughing at anything in particular. I just had the giggles.

ME: So did I, but two grown men with the giggles in the enclosed space of a truck can get pretty annoying. Especially when the reason these two men are giggling isn’t so apparent to the driver who just picked them up hitchhiking, and one of the hitchhikers happens to be in nothing but really loose boxer shorts.

TODD (adding): Which keep falling because the elastic is so threadbare.

ME: I can’t do this anymore, Todd. I can’t. I haven’t done a thing in four months. I mean I know nothing about you and for four months I’ve been sleeping next to you in a garbage bag. Do you see what I’m getting at?

TODD: You’re not happy here? We’re free from all our problems here.

ME: It’s snowing, Todd. And I’m not sure if you’ve noticed lately but I barely have anything covering my genitalia. If we don’t leave here, we are going to die.

TODD: Can’t we just stay a bit longer? I’m not ready to face the world yet.

ME: Todd, I’m not saying we have to go back to our regular lives yet. We could be transients someplace else… where I at least have a shirt or a towel or something. It’s just that I need something more in life than a wall that’s half burned down.

TODD: Where would we go?

ME: I don’t know. Maybe I can get some job making photocopies in an office or something. You can find a job too. What did you do before you ran away?

TODD: I was a motivational speaker.

ME: What the hell happened?

TODD: I got depressed.

I looked up at our half-burned down wall.

ME: You must have been really down.

TODD: I was successful too.

ME: And you lost everything?

TODD: No. I still have a townhouse mansion in Manhattan.

ME: What? And I’ve been sleeping against this wall for four months naked in a garbage bag!

TODD: I needed to get away.

ME: You made me eat a raccoon once, raw, and I think it may have still been alive.

TODD: You looked peaked.

ME: I’m outta here.

TODD: Where are you going?

ME: Your mansion. I need to thaw out.

TODD: I’m headed somewhere else. I now know what I need to do.

ME: And what’s that?

TODD: My quest. It’s time I finish it.

ME: Screw your quest. I’m dying, you moron. We probably have scurvy.

TODD: It’s what I was running from. I just got flustered.

ME: Flustered? You almost killed yourself here in these sadistic conditions. You make me so sick, I’d throw up on you right now if I had something in my stomach. Throw up: that’s what someone as pathetic as you deserves out of life. Get out of my face before I strangle you with my skivvies.

TODD: It’s a quest that will make us both millions of dollars.

ME (changing my tone): Let me grab my garbage bag.