I Eat Lunch Alone

I miss hitchhikers. I realize that's an odd thing to type, but I do.

I can't remember exactly when it happened, but I remember hitchhikers being an all-too-common part of my life. Now, they are rarer than stealing home. It's odd. Over the past eight years, I haven't seen one. Over the eight years before that, I couldn't take a road trip without seeing at least a few.

While I was spending my lunch hour wondering exactly what it was I missed about hitchhikers (and eating?I eat at lunch), I got to realize that I was experiencing a nostalgia of the relatively recent past for something that never really mattered.

But then, after a couple of spoonfuls of broccoli and cheese soup and a good fart, I realized that hitchhikers do matter. In fact, they matter a lot.

Hang with me now. I promise I'm going somewhere with this.

You see, the fact that there aren't a lot of hitchhikers anymore means that there aren't a lot of people who feel confident wandering the country without a ride or bus fare. That's because (I guess) this country isn't as safe as it used to be, and because a lot of people have taken to murdering hitchhikers (like hookers, they're easy serial killer targets). So, people just don't feel safe relying on the kindness of fellow humans. As a result, the experience of the hitchhiker and the experience of picking up the hitchhiker is all but gone.

What does this mean in the grand scheme of things? Well, it means most of the kids out there will never know the joy of understanding the rules to picking up hitchhikers (never pick them up when you're alone; always let them ride shotgun; and hope they have drugs). The new rule seems to be: don't pick them up at all.

And it means that a lot of people won't get to pick up a man and hear his stories about working in a woods in Oregon and getting wounded by an angry hippie protecting the trees, or about a relationship that ended with gunfire, or even the manic ramblings of a crazed young man who just wanted to see how long he could hitchhike the country before he actually felt like stopping. Hitchhiking can yield interpersonal experiences that border on the surreal. Or they can just lead to a conversation with a stranger. And, most importantly, most of the time hitchhiking can get a man where he wants to go.

But most men are too pussy now to go out and hitchhike.

And most Americans are too afraid to pick up hitchhikers.

And I think that says something about America. And I think that something sucks.

Of course, what do I know? I'm just a guy who can't stop farting in the break room.

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