The Case of the Disappearing Gatorade

J and I went hiking yesterday. It was a nice hike; one of the loop trails at Bent Creek - a down the mountain one so not particularly scenic, but fun. Hiking with J is totally different than hiking alone, because she is an extrovert and I am an introvert. Or, to put that another way, she is a friendly cheerful person who likes to talk to complete strangers, and I am a shy misanthropic loner who is incapable of starting a conversation with strangers. So when I go hiking, I speak to noone. I mean, I'm not evil, I nod and smile and sometimes say, "Hey." Or, if they speak to me, I respond politely. But that's it, whereas J just starts conversations right up, asks questions - it's great. I'm always in awe. But that has nothing to do with. . . the case!

The case of missing gatorade! No, not a whole case of gatorade, that would be just wrong; one missing bottle of gatorade, or, actually, the contents of one bottle of orange gatorade. On the way out to Bent Creek we stopped at the Gas Up (the Gas Up is a kwikee-mart more or less across the street from BJs, which is my local kwikee-mart, and I always feel weirdly guilty when I go to the Gas Up instead of BJs, go figure) and J got an orange gatorade and I got a bottle of water. I carried my water with me on the hike; J left her gatorade, which was missing maybe one sip, in the car. Specifically, on the floor of the passenger seat of the car.

When we got back to the car, the gatorade was almost empty. "Oh shit," said J, "I must not have screwed the top on and I bet it spilled all over your car." It didn't. There was no dampness anywhere at all. Either aliens came down from the sky and sucked up the gatorade with their super alien orange liquid sucking powers or, and this may be somewhat more likely, somebody looked in my car window, spotted the gatorade, opened the car door, took the gatorade, almost drained it, and left the bottle in the car. Which is, let's face it, a pretty fucking weird thing to do. A really really weird fucking thing to do. Nothing else was stolen - and there's a lot to steal in my car, particularly if you are fond of slightly fuzzy Ricola coughdrops, bad sci fi paperbacks, broken umbrellas, fossilized french fries or outdated maps of Maryland.

I have been trying to get the mindset of the gatorade thief. Okay, they were thirsty, and I understand that. Apparently very thirsty, and you know, we don't begrudge them the gatorade. It's the putting the bottle back with just that one swallow left that is creepy. Why not just take the whole thing? Why not just take the bottle with you when you go, oh very thirsty mountain biker who can't even wait the 12 minutes or so it would take to get from the trail head in Bent Creek to Brevard Road and the nearest store? Or, hell, you could sneak in to the soda machines at the arboretum in like 4 minutes, probably. It just seems - odd. Creepy. But interesting. I'll give you interesting. Whoever you are, you owe J a gatorade. You might be able to run into her at the Gas Up.

The Case of the Missing Blog Post
Well, shit. Before I left today for this lunch I went to, I posted a post entitled Seven Minutes or something like that. It was here. I saw it. And I've just made sure that I didn't post it on any other blog where I have posting rights, so that's not it, but it is now gone, baby gone. Damn. It wasn't brilliant or even particularly interesting but fuck, it was here this afternoon (I know the time on this says Sunday - it's still Saturday night to me) and now it is gone. Hmmmmm.