Fireworks and The Muddiest Mud That Ever Did Mud

This is a picture of my green converse. You may notice that they are, indeed, quite muddy. If you know me at all, you know I am not the most outdoorsy person, and you are probably wondering what on earth possessed me to walk anywhere it was that muddy, especially in one of my favorite pairs of converse shoes. Well, you can stop wondering now because I am going to tell you the story of my muddy green shoes.

It all started on New Year's Day at precisely 8:38 p.m. For, you see, at 8:38, I received the following seemingly harmless text message from my friend, Justin:

Hey! We're gonna meet at Erin's at 9:30 to have an explosive night of firework fun! Be there! :-)

To which I sent the following reply:

Yay!!

At the time, I was busy doing extremely important things. As a matter of fact, I was playing dominoes with my mother and my aunt. I quickly finished the last round of Mexican Train Dominoes so that I would not be late for "an explosive night of firework fun." Who in their right mind would be late for firework fun? (On a side note, I'm not being racist. The game really is called Mexican Train.) So as soon as my aunt finished beating me at dominoes, I rushed out the door and hurried home to change into more practical clothing for firework fun.

You see, before I was wearing the green converse, I was wearing brown high-heeled boots. Obviously, high heels are completely impractical for outdoor activity. So I changed from my pretty blue sweater, jeans, and high heels to a green t-shirt, jeans, and green converse.

I'm sure everyone wanted to know that useless bit of fashion information.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

I will proceed with the story now.

So I drove over to Erin's house, and once everyone had gotten there, we finally left for firework fun. To clarify, the process of my friends "finally leaving" to go anywhere takes approximately 15 minutes to an hour. In the process of leaving, we got distracted and watched some YouTube video of swing dancing to the tune of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Then we moved on to the last stage of "leaving."

The last stage of leaving Erin's house consists of many difficult decisions. First, we must find our coats, shoes, etc. and decide how many jackets we need. After I decided to wear two coats and Erin decided to wear a gigantic camo jacket (and we made jokes about not being able to find Erin because of her camo jacket, and then laughed about how dumb the jokes were), we then began moving toward the door. You think we're well on our way now, but we're not. We stop.

Are we supposed to go out the front door or the back door? How many cars are we taking? Who's driving? Where are the keys?

So approximately five minutes later, we decided to take one Expedition. As we got into the Expedition, however, we discovered that, in fact, Justin was not present.

"Where's Justin?" we all asked each other.

"He must be taking his own car," Erin said.

"Why?" Katy asked.

"I don't know. I guess the fireworks are in his car," Erin replied.

"Wouldn't it be easier for him to just put the fireworks in this car, and we can just ride together?" Katy asked.

"That would make sense," I said.

"Well Justin's the one who knows where we can shoot off fireworks, so I guess we'll just have to follow him," Erin declared.

"That'll work, I suppose," said I.

So, we all rode in the Expedition with the exception of Justin.

This was the first fatal mistake. Because of this decision, my green shoes are now brown.

As we began to follow Justin's little speedy sportscar down the road, we discovered Justin was, in fact, driving quite quickly.

"He probably just wanted to drive because he likes driving his fast car," Erin said.

As we began heading out of town, we approached a stop sign. Justin started to do a U-turn.

"Why is he turning around?" we wondered.

Justin rolled down his window and yelled, "It's a dirt road. Maybe I missed the spot. *It might be on the other street."

*For the record, none of remember Justin saying that we might have been on the wrong street, probably because we were being lazy and didn't want to turn around and drive all the way to another street. That would be logical and involve turning the steering wheel a few extra times (which of course takes way too much effort). Even though, I don't remember Justin saying this, he insists that he did. So I pretended he said that and wrote it in.

Erin then says matter-of-factly, "We have to leave the city limits anyway! We have to go on a dirt road to get out of the city! Let's just go forward!" And she gestured toward the dirt road like she was a flight attendant or something. (Erin has a tendency to gesture quite a bit when she proclaims something...or tells a story...or is just talking in general.) Anyway, Erin sounded very convincing, and we all agreed that going straight ahead sounded like a pretty good idea.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. But of course, we didn't know that at the time.

Justin did another U-turn and began to lead the way down the dirt road. We noticed that Justin didn't seem to be driving all that well. This was quite strange, you see, because in west Texas, dirt roads are not that rare. We have all driven on many dirt roads. I mean, it had snowed a couple times over the past week so it might be a little muddy, but still, this should be no big deal. And yet...


"Justin is fishtailing!" Katy exclaimed.

"Well that's weird," Erin said.

"Uh-0h." I said.


And there went Justin's little sportscar. It drove itself to the side of the "road," and nestled snugly into a muddy trench.

"He's definitely stuck," Chui said.

"Alright. Well...should we get out and push his car?" Katy said.

"I guess so," we all muttered, as we began to open the car doors.

"It is EXTREMELY muddy," we heard Chui say.

"It can't be that bad...or maybe it is...ewwww!"

At this point, I realized that it was very cold outside and that my choice of shoes was terrible. As I thought this, I stepped out of the car, and into the mud. I then began to sink. The mud just oozed all the way up to my ankles, covering my jeans and all the visible (now invisible) green of my shoes.

This mud was the messiest, slipperiest, mud I have ever seen. It was completely horrible. We began walking toward Justin's car. But we weren't really walking; we were kinda marching. A few moments after we reached Justin's car (which was hopelessly stuck in the mud), we all just stopped and looked at each other...and started laughing.

"That's the last time I listen to Erin!" Justing said.

"Everyone else agreed with me! I wasn't the only one!" Erin laughed.

"Yeah, it's true," Katy and I said.

"This is why I did not volunteer to drive," I said.

At this point, Justin and Chui (the only males in the group) began to look at the car and pretend to act like they knew what they were doing.

The girls, on the other hand, got a bit distracted.

"I have never seen this much mud!" I said.

I took a step and began sinking faster. Apparently, it was somehow muddier one foot to to the side. "This mud is...serious about being mud."

I looked over at Erin, who was marching in place to keep from sliding and sinking, and she said, "This is the muddiest mud that ever did mud."

Katy said, "At least we can see the stars!"

Katy and I began to sing:

"Somewhere out there,
beneath the pale moonlight,
someone's thinking of me,
and...laLAlaLalaaa"

The lalas come in handy when you can't remember the words to a song.

"Hey guys! My iphone still works! We can watch YouTube!" Erin exclaimed.

We started googling random things and looking up silly stuff on wikipedia. And singing random songs because it's a good way to pass the time.

Some time later, Justin walked over and said, "Come help us push the car. We're not strong enough to move it ourselves. Whovever's stronger needs to be on the side."

Erin said, "Ooooh, I'm not very strong at all or in shape or physically fit!"

I said, "I used to be in shape..."

Justin muttered something to the effect of "I was in shape before I went to college."

And Katy chimed in enthusiastically, "I move frequently!"

We moved around the car, and Justin and Chui told us to push, so we did.

"Start pushing," Chui said.

"We already are," we said.

Apparently, we weren't very much help. So I pulled out my cell phone and called my dad. Erin pulled out her cell phone and called her dad. Katy found a broomstick on the side of the road and started poking at the mud around the tires while saying, "I'm just gonna dig the mud out from around the tires."

As I was telling Katy that the mud was practically liquid and poking at it probably wasn't going to help, I heard Erin yell, "Katy! What is that?!"

"It's a broomstick!"

"Where'd you get it?!"

"It was in the mud!"

"That is so awesome! Guys, we have a broomstick! This night is not a total failure!"

Erin's dad was on his way with his giant truck and a tow chain, so we decided to just kill time while we waited.

We turned on the car radio, and "danced" in the mud. It was quite comical, considering none of us could really stand very well in the swamp. We watched Justin and Chui continue to do that guy thing where they stand around the car and point at various parts of the automobile, diagnosing all of the reasons why the car was stuck in the mud.

We discovered that patches of ice were pretty much the equivalent of islands in the ocean of mud. The ice was much safer than the mud, actually.

As I was hopping from one patch of ice to the next, I smelled something burning.

"It smells like fireworks..." Erin said.

We looked out into the field to see Justin lighting a Roman Candle.

"Are you seriously shooting off fireworks here?!" I yelled.

Katy exclaimed, "We're still in the city limits!"

"Aren't we?" she asked me.

"Haha, I don't know. It's not like there was a 'You're leaving Lubbock' sign."

About this time, Erin noticed the house in the field, "Justin, stop! Those people in that house are going to be angry at us!"

Then Chui said, "Well if the angry people come talk to us, we can just make Ashley talk to them."

To which Erin replied, "Oh that's a great idea! Nobody can be mad at Ashley!"

"That's a horrible idea! Maybe I don't want to talk to angry people! Maybe they just won't notice."

Thankfully they didn't. Either that or they didn't want to waste time talking to college kids who were so smart that they got a car stuck in the mud and were shooting off fireworks right next to their house.

Eventually Erin's dad got there and joined Justin and Chui, saying, "Well, I don't really know what to do."

Even so, we pushed and pulled the car again and again and again.

And nothing happened.

Well, actually, it might have moved two inches forward and then two inches backward. After countless attempts, we gave up, and took off our mud-caked shoes before getting back in the Expedition.

In the end, Justin ended up riding with us anyway.

By this time, it was after midnight, so we went back to Erin's house and recapped the evening. We all agreed that it was a hilarious adventure we would always remember.

And even though it's a bit corny, I have to agree with my friends in saying that if I had to get stuck in the mud, I'm glad I was stuck in the mud with them.

Strangely enough, I am also glad that my green shoes are now brown because every time I look at them, I can't help but smile and remember my friends and how great they truly are.

Besides, I have another pair of converse. They're purple...for now anyway.