I’m typing this from a Linuxed obsolete Microsoft surface, perched on a crappy old picnic table. There is cell service here, sorta… I borrowed a wifi hotspot from the library. Can I post live from here?
Who knows?
What was the point? Oh yes. I went camping with Jilted Girlfriend. Several days later did it again (with my truck). I’ve been having a ball. Stuff I meant to blog is all mixed up in two trips. That’s OK; chronological order is boring.
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I’d like to talk about my “hat gambit”.
Just two years ago I was in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. I’d finished a motorcycle “adventure”. OK it wasn’t a big budget African safari, but I’d had fun. I did it all by myself. Self guided adventure, in America’s outback, using my cheap little dirt bike. You can have a hell of an adventure, even on a smallish budget, if you’re motivated and/or crazy. It made me happy.
At an outfitter place where I’d stashed my truck, I was loading my bike on its trailer for the trip home. I was practically glowing with joy. There can be no finer nectar than the sweet taste of conjuring a challenge and then succeeding; so satisfying!
Mrs. Curmudgeon sent me a text. (Cell was spotty there too. She’d sent it hours ago. But fortunately it came in before I left.) “You should buy a hat & shirt. You earned it.”
Tourists do this thing where they’ll go to Paris or Peru and buy stuff that says “I went to Paris or Peru.” I don’t think like that. If it was awesome, won’t you remember? But Mrs. Curmudgeon is wise and I might never be back. So I bought a hat from Bear Lodge Resort to remember the moment.
Life ensued. Half a year later, I was sicker than a dog with an ailment doctors hadn’t figured out. I’d show up at medical places in absolute misery; “I’m fucked up. Do something!” The doc (or nurse practitioner or specialist or whomever was manning the place) was never concerned. If they don’t see blood, they don’t give a shit. I walked into the medical place under my own power. That’s what they saw. Dude can walk, he can’t be that rough.
I felt like a drowning man but was ambulant and not missing parts. It made me invisible. They’d do whatever expensive test they felt like billing; often with no clear explanation of what they were looking for. When a test came back “the thing we measured is within specs” they’d shove me out the door. I got several expensive “not half bad” reports from various technologies. It’s not bad news but didn’t address my ill health.
The thing was, they were using a baseline that wasn’t for me. I’m not particularly young looking. They knew my age from the charts but acted like I was 80. I walked from the car; at great difficulty. I was dressed and showered, which had wore me out. Standing and dressed, that’s all they figured I should be able to do. An unavoidable bias, they usually deal with people far more messed up than I.
I tried to tell them; “I ought to be capable of more than walking to your door. I was doing much better very recently.” I was persistent. I wasn’t going to waste away so a doctor could avoid confusing diagnostics. How many people die because they’re unwilling to make a stink?
It happened many times. Anything short of passed out on the floor was “fine”. If I died somewhere beyond the parking lot, it wasn’t their problem. They combined this with delay; ideally forever. “That test might help. I’ll schedule you for six weeks from next Tuesday. Hopefully by then you’ll be dead and leave me alone. Whoops, did I say that last part aloud?”
I decided to be an asshole about it. Do meek people just fade out? They don’t want to be a spectacle. Do they die because nobody was paying attention? I inverted that. I had a rant I mentally called the “Hat Gambit”. I’d take off my hat, purchased high in the mountains of Wyoming, and start waving it around. Then, I’d tear into everyone in sight.
“See this hat?” I’d wave it like it a baseball bat in a street fight. “I bought this hat at 9,000’ elevation. I’d been riding a dirt bike thought the Bighorn Mountains. I was sleeping in a tent. IN A FUCKING TENT ON A MOUNTAIN!” Usually this brought a few more nurses or whatever, eager to see the bearded freak losing his shit.
“You!” I’d point to anyone at random. “Have you ever slept in a tent above the treeline? Can you operate a motorcycle on difficult trails? Are you capable of doing what I did half a year ago?”
Lets face it, most Americans, and especially people in medical facilities, are not rugged outdoor adventurers. There’s a lot of flab out there; mental and physical. The angry old bearded guy claimed he can and should do more than they’d done… not a happy comparison.
“I’m sick of twits acting like I’m 80 years old and never ate a vegetable. Some of your patients can barely waddle to the junk food aisle at Walmart. I get that and it’s fine. But my decline was sudden and unexplained. Compare my condition now to my condition then. I don’t give a shit about the ‘average’ baseline.”
This would percolate through brains… slowly. But it did happen. For some reason the hat mattered. I went from “guy making up bullshit stories” to “that nutball recently slept in a tent at the treeline?”
“I was on a dirtbike for a week.” I’d rant” “Now I can barely brush my teeth.” I’d hurl the final challenge like a man grasping for a life preserver. “SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED. Figure it out!”
After that, I’d settle right back down. Nobody likes being petulant. I’d acted rudely and I’d done so on purpose. It wasn’t fun. I know there are patients with gunshots and cancer, but even if my suffering wasn’t on that level, I needed care too. If I had to be a dick about it, I’ll answer to God when the time comes.
It did work, though slowly. Doctors did give my chart a second look. Tests scheduled months in the future were rescheduled (at my insistence) within the week. (Usually hundreds of miles away, which was fine with me. I had a truck and could still drive.) How many people die because the medical care in their local area sucks and they just put up with substandard care? How many more would live if they dropped everything and attended to their health. If you’ve got to schlepping your ass to a different time zone and pay for a hotel, isn’t health worth it?
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Anyway, that was then and this is now. I woke up in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I was happy as a clam.
I’d brought my bike (Honey Badger) using a trailer on my backup car (Jilted Girlfriend). I strapped the bike with emergency gear (beef sticks, water, matches) and my little shotgun (small game season!). Then I rolled out.
I had no goal. Only to be. And it was grand!
A half hour from camp I realized I’d forgotten my hat. (I wear a helmet but often stop to hike. I wear a baseball hat for walking.) By then I’d taken three random turns on unnamed trails. I wasn’t sure where I was and didn’t feel like returning. So I didn’t.
The hat remained ignored and unnecessary. I’m healthy now (actually still recovering but so much better I’m almost giddy). It’s hard to gauge how bad I was. It can’t wrap my mind around it. When you’re fucked your forget how good life can feel. I don’t regret going ape on doctors. They need to remember patients are individuals.
It’s like 2025 scarcely happened. My bike went nowhere all year. But as the fall leaves blew in the wind, I was there. Two years after the same bike took me across Wyoming, I was in the saddle again. I’d braved a water crossing and was covered with mud. I was taking random trails. I was wandering the middle of nowhere. I was alone, unsupported, and doing my thing.
It was a tourist hat. Then it was a talisman. Now? It’s just a fuckin’ hat again.
I laughed in my helmet. I kept laughing. Louder and louder. Why not? I can laugh all day if I want. And I almost did.
It’s good to be back!
