Dangling off a Bridge

Many years ago my best friend Phil and I had made rather hilarious blunder. We were both in our earl collage years and short on money, as most were at the time. I get a call one day informing me about a possible job, selling a product that I won’t mention for legal reasons. Seems a like a good deal, so I tell Phil about it and we agree to meet the representative.

"Could be a quick buck, worst case we lose a few hours." Phill tells me. I agree with that sentiment, and we go off. It's the middle of the night, and its raining hard. The representative told us to meet them at one of the malls in the area, around seven or so at night. We are on our way, but we can’t see anything properly. Every sign and turn was to blurred, and as per usual we miss our exit. We park in an empty lot and think about what to do. The thing was, the mall was close, in walking distance of the lot. However, that walking distance went over a river.

"We can keep driving to find a U-turn, then a second U-turn." I tell Phil, "Or we park here, lock up, and look for a way across." It would have taken us at least half an hour to drive about, maybe five minutes to look for a way across. There wasn't a clear path just woods, which we both found odd, until we saw a bridge. First, we thought it was happy days, easy way across. Then we saw it was locked up, rusted so likely not used in years, but in good condition. You best believe we decided to cross it, I never claimed we were smart.

We can’t open it, or climb over the gate so we have to climb around it, with the rain pouring and the river below raging. I'll admit it might be my own mind making it seem like rapids at the time, but we both felt like we could have died. More than once we slip, almost falling into the river and holding on for dear life. We get across, of course, otherwise I would not be typing this, by the time we get to the mall we still manage to be five minutes late. The rep asks us what happened, we look like drowned rats now, and we just tell him the rain. He accepts and we talk. The man is very persuasive, gives a good speech, and even offers to buy us dinner since we’re there. We decline, as it’s a business thing and we want to seem professional. It takes half an hour; we all shake hands and part ways. Phil and I step outside and realize we have to cross that bridge again. I get a single long glare from Phil, and we get to moving. I swear its even more difficult the second time, the rain picked up and the river was overflowing. At least it looked that way to us at the time. Still we manage, get to the car where Phil complains about the water and seats. Here’s the kicker of the whole mess, we didn’t take the job. We went through all that and said no. Phil says only one thing to me after all this.

"Well that was a waste of time."

I don’t agree fully, as we have a funny story to tell, but I can understand his sentiments. He did make me pay for dinner and gas though, which I suppose was fair. We were a couple of idiots, but we had fun.