Moral of the story: Do not trust Liesel and I around mud.
Camping! Camping is fun, right? This is a school camping trip, not to Waterton this time. We went to this lovely place called Kamp Kiwanis, where the counselors were too attractive for their own good (which ties into another story, but anyway).
So, we were all trekked out into the woods to this pond they have, and were told to make examinations of the wildlife in and around the pond. Liesel had decided to go “screw this” and wear running shoes with no socks. I, on the other hand, had decided to wear some old rainboots that I had. So, you know, walking around, jumping over trees, that stuff, and Liesel and I eventually get split up. That’s okay with me, because I had found a spot I liked on the shore of this tiny pond and was examining it contently. This pond has a ring of mud circling it. At first, little Stella thinks, “Oh, it’s mud! How bad could it be?” Until she steps in said mud and begins to sink immediately. Safe to say, I avoided it.
I’m happily keeping a safe distance away from the quicksand/mud, examining around the pond with my dorky little magnifying glass, when I hear from across the water, “Uh…. Stella?” Lo and behold, as I look up, there stands Liesel yelling at me from the other side of the pond. Upon further examination (read: I fell out of the tree I was sitting in and squinted at her for 10 seconds), it looked like Liesel was stuck past her ankles in this mud. I, being a good friend, heaved a heavy sigh and trekked over there to figure out how to save her.
I had dropped my little black book of notes and gently placed my magnifying glass onto it, before spinning around and striding over to Liesel. This is important because this means I keep my shoulder bag on. Why do that, Stella? It’s my mothers shoulder bag, and I would rather eat glass shards than have any damage come to it. So, shoulder bag still on.
I carefully placed my feet when walking in and grabbed Liesel under the armpits. With much screaming and swearing from her, I began to pull up and back- which was a challenge, because I still haven’t hit my growth spurt at this point (read: Liesel is probably about 3 inches taller than me), and she’s muuuuuccchhhh heavier than me. But still, tiny Stella struggles to try her best because she’s a determined little sucker.
5 minutes of pulling later, Liesel is magically free! Whoopie, yay! So, she stumbles out like a drunken moose and starts shaking mud out of her shoes. I twist around to try and get out (holding my bag in place during all of this, of course) and find an unfortunate liiiiitttlllle problem.
“Well, shit.” Sixth grade Stella thinks. “What do I do now?” My only thought is to shake the mud loose, so I start twisting around and trying to lift my feet up. It turns out, moving around in mud that is mostly water sucks you down more. My attempts to lit my feet up just result in me coming thisclose to losing my boots, so I stop that. Seeing no other option, I heave a huge sigh and attempt to twist my body around to yell for Liesel. However, I neglect to hold my shoulder bag this time. So, spin around with all my force, bag pick up momentum- THUNK! Straight into my stomach. I reel backwards and, since I can’t move my feet, topple like a tree. I have enough common sense to stick out one of my arms to catch myself before I land completely in the mud, and for .5 seconds, life is good.
Then the shoulder bag follows me down.
THUNK, even deeper into the mud I go. I’m shocked at first, before I realize “SHIT, the bag is going to go into the mud”. Thus, I use my free hand to grab the bag and hug it close to my chest so there’s no way it can get into the hellish pit of quicksand mud. Liesel is sitting on the sidelines staring at me this entire time.
“Can you help me up?” I finally ask. She shuts her mouth and nods, before getting up. I stop her. “Shoulder bag first.” Although she’s confused, Liesel maneuvers my shoulder bag off of me without getting it in the mud. She then hangs it in a tree a large distance away from the pond.
Liesel walks carefully back into the mud and begins to pull me. I’m up to my shins at this point, so the task is considerably harder for her. Finally, Liesel gives up and yells for a camp counsellor, dropping me back into the mud in the process.
A counsellor who went by the name of Oak came to help me. He stood there for a second, looking at me and giving a half-laugh, half-heavy sigh before walking over to me. He pulls me up and begins to yank. I’m doubtful (and kind of embarrassed, because at this point I’m all chub and no height and Oak is decently handsome), but I suppose that from sheer force of will, I slowly begin to gain centimetres upwards.
And so, we begin to make progress. I can see the bottoms of my pants after a little. A minute later, I can look down the hole and see my little pink and purple rain boots. I’m excited for a moment.
Then Oak tugs again, and my feet slip.
One more tug, they slip more. I clench my toes and wiggle down in Oak’s arms to attempt to keep my boots on my feet. Oak grunts, and shifts me in his arms before yanking again.
I keep trying in vain to keep my boots on my feet, before giving up. With a final yank, Oak hoists me out of the mud, leaving my boots buried. He holds me up for a few seconds, before asking, “Are you out?”
“Well, yeah. But, my boots…” Is my reply. He looks awkwardly over my shoulder and heaves a heavy sigh, before throwing me backwards. I land and trip over my own two feet into a bush, get up, and attempt to look composed, before sitting down on a fallen tree and beginning to clear my neon orange socks.
Meanwhile, Oak is still in the death mud, tugging my boots out. He has to reach down to his elbow to grab a hold of them, and tug with all of his strength. Finally, one bursts up out of the lovely mess of mud with a splatter of dirty water. He chucks it back at me, before repeating the process with the other one. I murmur a "thank you" at him and pick up my messy rubber boots. Oak doesn't pay attention to me as he attempts to move his foot up.
Oooohohoho boy, this is just fantastic. I've managed to get my CAMP COUNSELLOR STUCK. But, Oak manages to free himself after a bit of a struggle and a lot of laughter from the other counsellors. Liesel still hasn't let me live this down.
Tl;dr: Wanted to help a friend, got stuck in some mud, lost my boots, and threw a counsellor into the pond mud of doom. No biggie.
(I'm on mobile, so the structure of this is killing me.)