Out of the Wild

Butterfinger is back.  I picked him up at the airport last Thursday with the dogs in tow.  Dirty, stinky, sunburned, exhausted, and happy; really, really happy.  He spent the greater part of this past month as a nomadic person in Pennsylvania working for food, and helping where he was needed.  Upon our return to PA he felt compelled to get in touch with a childhood friend that had since left the area, and for all intents and purposes, had pretty much fallen off the face of the earth.  Much like many things in our lives, Butterfinger had no idea why he felt he was being called to get in touch with Gum Drop, but he just knew he had to find a way.

What do you know, a friend of a friend had Gum Drop’s telephone number, and while this friend would not give out Gum Drop’s number for Butterfinger to call, Butterfinger’s number was passed on and within a week the old friends were back in contact.   They immediately decided they would need to get together, and now Butterfinger’s mission switched gears from working to eat, to working to fly.  Butterfinger did an assortment of odd jobs, mostly manual labor, to raise the funds for his trip to Florida to reconnect with his friend.  He spent evenings weed whacking, early mornings with concrete, and disassembling ancient hot water heaters in his spare time.  With the queen of cheap airfare by his side, it was only a matter of days before he had enough to get to his destination, and eventually return home.

On a Friday in July, Butterfinger flew to his destination.  Despite the fact that his landing location was the airport closest to Gum Drop, it was still about 70 miles from his beach side locale, which presented an issue when Butterfinger found out that Gum Drop would not be able to pick him up from the airport.  What does a computer geek who is stranded in an airport do?  Fire up the laptop and start searching Craigslist for solutions to the problem of course!  Over the next few hours I received an influx of emails highlighting everything from adult tricycles, to Dumb and Dumber-style scooters, and ending with computer programming gigs.

After contacting a number of people, and weighing the options of scooting vs. hitchhiking vs. walking, Butterfinger was contacted back by a party interested in a solution for a website issue.  As it turns out, this person that needed web work, was also an employee at the rental car place in the airport where Butterfinger was camped out, and offered to pay for his rental car in exchange for the amount of programming that needed to be done.  After an evening of Butterfinger programming, an hour long visit to FedEX to fax the rental car people my credit card info, and some Craigslist ingenuity, Butterfinger was on his way to see Gum Drop.

You will have to talk to Butterfinger yourself if you want the intimate details of the trip, but the series of broken thoughts that follows will serve to summarize an outsider’s perspective on the events that transpired:

• Stay up all night after arriving at the airport to do the coding.
• After signing paperwork and having Snickers finally be able to send the fax, procure the rental car and finally leave the airport 24 hours after arriving.
• On the way to greet Gum Drop, spot and pick up a stranger with a broken down car, and give said stranger a ride while he does Bible promotion; reluctantly take $5 offered by Bible pusher when he is dropped off.
• Arrive at Gum Drop’s tent in moonlight and are greeted by a fire complete with banana leaf grilled Tilapia.
• Talk about simple things like the weather, remember childhood stories, and get into Gum Drop’s present status.
• Gum Drop is not very keen on electronics and somewhat put off by them, and this makes communication during this time difficult.
• Become blood feast for thousands of mosquitoes while attempting to sleep outside, in mud, in tent.
• More talk therapy sessions.
• Go foraging in rain forest area for supplies, food, and perspective.
• Begin construction of platform for tent so it does not sit in pile of mud; hanging of tarp.
• More talk therapy; Gum Drop has a 14 month old daughter.
• Spend time in workshop learning about aboriginal instruments crafted by Gum Drop.
• Talking, listening, thinking.
• Deal with rain, it rains a few times per day; more mosquito thirsty mosquitoes.
• Go to Big Lots and purchase rice cooker.
• Buy rice at Sam’s club, and talk about difficulty of comparison shopping with social anxiety.
• More work on platform.
• Saying goodbyes, pledging to keep in touch, and getting back on the road in the Craigslisted rental car to spend the night sleeping at the airport for 7 am flight.
• Home.