True Lies

Yet, on a very rare occasion you will be well into some outrageous tale and start to realize this person may be telling you the truth. This story got through my BS meter. Do you think I've been had?
It was late fall in the Florida Panhandle. The nights were cold for us Floridians, high 30s, low 40s. Daytime was a balmy mid sixties. The aroma of campfire smoke and overripe menstrual female smacked me in the face when I went into the room for my first meeting with Campfire Girl. She was wearing shorts and a tee shirt. She was covered in dried mud, soot and blood. There was a mosaic of superficial scratches covering her arms legs, and face. Her eyes thousand yard stared at me from her smudged face. Her story would have been suitable for a campfire tale.
She suspected her son of lying to her about his evening plans. She feared that instead of going to choir practice or some such, he was really at a campfire bacchanal somewhere in the piney woods. She decided to catch him in his lie, so she set out in her jacked up pickup truck into the maze of dirt roads that wound through the woods.
Of course she got lost. Of course it got dark. When the time came to turn on the headlights, CG had to stop the Jacked Up Monster Truck. You see, she had to connect the wire that powered the headlights directly to the battery because the switch didn’t work. Did I mention that CG was a bit on the short side? She couldn’t reach the hood latch on Jacked Up Monster Truck. Did I mention that the door handle on the Jacked Up Monster Truck didn’t work and you had to reach into the window to open it from the inside? Did I mention that it was getting cool and CG had the window rolled up? How could things get worse, right?
Well, there happens to be a wildly out of control wild hog population in that neck of the woods. Normally wild hogs are extremely shy but they have been known to attack and rarely even kill people. Campfire Girl, being a country girl, knew from wild hogs. And she knew what to do when you’re chased by one. Climb a tree. Did I mention that these piney woods were Planted Piney Woods…Recently Planted Piney Woods. The biggest tree in sight was not much taller than our diminutive CG so she struck out running through the woods…at night…leading a mad?.. amorous?.. rabid?.. whatever.. wild hog. I don’t know how far she ran, nor does she, but she finally found a tree big enough to climb. Barely. She stayed in the tree slightly out of tusk reach for what seemed like hours with the hog circling and gnashing at the tree. When he finally left she stayed up there interminable more hours, terrified he would return.
When she couldn’t hang on anymore she returned to terra firma and began walking back to the JUMT. You guessed it. No idea which way to go.
As I’m listening to this story I’m doing my usual prognostication. I’m expecting to hear that she found her way to the bonfire and doesn’t remember what happened after that and she might need a morning after pill. You know how we always like to predict the ulterior motive of the story. But as she continues I’m shocked to the heels. She might not be lying to me.
Now she’s wandering lost at night through the RPPW in shorts and tee shivering from the cold and post adrenaline low. What could be worse, right. You guessed it, she stumbled into a mud puddle. Now here’s where the truth gut punched me, and if you doubt there is a God doubt no more. While she’s sitting up to her belly button in this frigid pool she finds a mason jar. Sealed inside the jar are a small roll of toilet paper and a book of matches. She spends the remainder of the night diligently feeding her campfire.
In the morning when she finally found a road she hid fearfully in the brush while two trucks passed her by. After that night you really can’t blame her for expecting the worst. Finally she cast her fate in the hands of God and flagged down a hunter. They called 911 and that’s how I met Campfire Girl.