Fear And Loathing On The Appalachian Trail In 2020
By Paulina Pinsky
Originally published on Slackjaw Humor, Dec 5, 2020.
The assignment was to write a story about hiking the Appalachian Trail. I told the YouTube Influencer-turned-Senior Editor I’d do one night in a campground near it. Camping is a COVID-friendly activity, and I was about to see what it was all about for myself. I picked up my rental white Dodge Caravan at the Hertz in Culpeper, Virginia, and hit the road at a solid pace of 389 miles per hour. Trump & Pence signs littered every lawn, and red, white, and blue Confederate flags hung proudly. I pulled down my cheetah print cotton mask, rolled down my window, and shouted: “I’m pregnant, and I’m giving it up!” every few miles just to rile the people up. A shotgun was fired. Turns out bullet holes are covered by Hertz if you have a press badge.
Since I was going to sit out in the elements for one day and one night, I’d need chemical assistance. In the trunk sat an army-surplus tent, two sleeping bags, one samurai sword, and one duffel-bag big enough to hide four teacup poodles filled with mescaline, DMT, fifteen pounds of chunky biodegradable glitter, PCP, a tank of nitrous oxide, four live goldfish in plastic bags filled with water, LSD, a bootleg Fenty eye shadow palette, and three bottles of Windex. And last but not least: four hundred tampons. When in doubt, tampon strings can be tied together and used as a lasso.
Driving toward Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park sang her siren song, and I kept my ears and eyes pried open. But the only thing that truly drove me mad was the park ranger. I pulled up to Loft Mountain Campground and was stopped at the entrance. A man dressed in barf-green khaki, head-to-toe, walked up to the Dodge.
“I’m sorry, but that isn’t the standard-issue park pass. Did you reserve a campsite online?”
“I’m writing for Teen Vogue,” I said before gunning the engine.
I drove up to an unclaimed campsite. The ranger pulled up in a golf cart and kept insisting, “This one is reserved!” I grabbed a bottle of Windex and sprayed him off.
Fire. If you’re going to survive in the wild, you must have fire. Our alternative fuel method of choice: Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume. When lit with a match, a violent flare erupts. Alternatively, it can be inhaled. Vertiginous effects. Just as good as food. Watch out for the damned park ranger — though eradicated, not dead — he doesn’t agree with this alternative food (fuel) source.
They say that shrooms are responsible for the origin of human language, and Betty White showed up with enough of ‘em to learn every regional dialect of Chinese in sixty-four seconds (你好白人). Betty, however, forgot all human language when she smoked the DMT in the backseat of her Acura and hallucinated that she was Genghis Khan, the great-great-great-grandmother of sixteen million men. When she finally could speak, she couldn’t stop screaming, “I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR SIXTEEN MILLION MEN!” I pulled my mask over my mouth and nose. Are we not all responsible for sixteen million men?
The sound of children’s laughter erupted — and I hadn’t even eaten any drugs yet. Turns out there were living, breathing children riding bikes and wearing helmets in this campsite. I, for one, could tell the children were real. Betty thought that they were Teddy Grahams come to life.
When night crept in so did the sounds. I grabbed the Windex and sprayed Betty down. I heard the caw of a beak, the cry of a wolf, the dry-heaves of a drunk college kid muttering “Boot and rally! Boot and rally!” I unzipped my duffle bag and chugged a bottle of Windex: repelling bugs and myself. I dumped fourteen pounds of glitter on my head, inhaled Daisy, and lit a match.
Tonight, I would brave the darkness, but only in myself.