"I don't want to keep going," she said after one misstep too many into one of the slushy tributaries which fed into the bottomless pool at the base of the mountain.
"We have to get back one way or the other," I told her. "We can rest for a bit, but we can't camp out here. It will get too cold."
She grabbed my coat, and I kind of towed her along in a slow moving cattle train fashion, with lots of grumbling from the cattle. We finally got to the bottom and made our way back to the greater Los Angeles area. We stopped briefly at my place in Downey, but soon she left, headed for her place in Whittier.
We promised to keep in touch, although cell phones were not part of the equation. I only had a landline with no long distance service and a CB radio. She tried to call me on my landline, but it came through as a collect call, which I grudgingly accepted.
"I don't know why it's collect," I whined to the operator. "I can receive long distance calls. I just can't dial out." It dawned on me that Emery's situation might be similar, so collect was the only option.
We talked for a few minutes, but I was growing antsy about the charges, so I recommended the CB radio as a way to communicate for free. She agreed, and within a few minutes I heard her voice coming through my crackly Cobra 2000 speakers.
"I'm staying at this place in Whittier," she told me, and she proceeded to give out the address over the airwaves, along with a bunch of other details of her personal life.
"I don't suppose you want to really broadcast that kind of information," I told her.
She couldn't hear me however, and the conversation soon faded into the static and traffic of other radio users in the area. I made an attempt to get my equipment in better working order, but the dream was already fading as well. I woke up with a screaming sore throat and a temp of 99.4 on Day 3 after my exposure to Covid.
***Belated congratulations to myself for my 1000th published blog post. It kind of snuck up on me, or I would have made it extra special. Really, I meant to at least have a cupcake with a single candle while I celebrate by singing "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" to myself. Oh, well, maybe next time.
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I've changed my comments settings to allow for anyone to comment. All comments are welcome, even spineless potshots from anonymous posters. Please, by all means, give me the tongue lashing I so richly deserve. I promise not to hunt you down and melt your keyboard with my plasma cannon. I won't, however, promise not to pout and make that face you can't stand.