The Great Winter Odyssey

Hi there!

This is Sherlock. Since this is the byusurvivalists page I thought it’d be good to talk about an essential part of surviving BYU and that is knowing how to get by when you are locked out of your apartment or home.

You may not realize how important this is so imagine this: One fine winter evening after a grueling day of school work your stomach begins to growl. This is a pretty good excuse to take a break from productive pursuits so you quickly make the trek home down the stairs, past the duck pond, and through the snow. Finally, you make it. You turn the door knob but to your dismay, the door doesn’t open! You desperately throw yourself against the door in an effort to get in. When you realize brute force isn’t enough, you slowly curl into a ball on the door mat and freeze there like the little match girl.

See! Not being physically or mentally prepared for this kind of crisis is detrimental! But don’t worry Bike Yoga and I have learned the secrets on how to deal with this situation. I think the best way to demonstrate these is through the story of our great odyssey that occurred earlier this week.

It all started on the train ride to Salt Lake City. We were cold, tired, and hungry but we had barely caught the train on time. The people around us were cheery drinking hot chocolate and eating Christmas flavored things. That’s when we began to wonder what we were doing there. It’s not that these things aren’t fun. They are but we, being worried about school, were not in the right mood for frivolous activities such as these. Yoga looked at me and I looked at her and we knew what we had to do. (Actually, it involved a little more than meaningful looks.)

 Anyways, we knew that we had to get off at the next stop. The train rolled into the Lehi station and we jumped off running ready to get onto the train going the other direction. Unfortunately, we’re not the best train jumpers and we missed the train going back home.

To stay warm while waiting the 30 torturous minutes for the next train to arrive, we walked around the station. We talked about warm places and all of the foods that we wanted to eat. Bike Yoga tried to prank call a couple of people from the pay phone. Finally, the train came!

We got inside fast and did all that we could to regain feeling in our feet and hands. Bike Yoga put her bare feet on the heating vent. Soon we were the only people on the train but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

On arriving back at the train station closest to home, we realized that we still had at least a mile to walk before getting back. We started the walk with our courage high! When our spirits started to get low one of us would quote something inspirational from Gandalf or Sam. Even with these protective measures we began to lose strength. We stumbled through the snow only putting one foot in front of the other. Things were beginning to look desperate. We had no provisions! Would we make it back? There was a light in the distance. It was a bakery that turned out to be a little Mexican oasis full of warmth and sustenance. On becoming reenergized from a cream filled churro, we ventured back out into the great cold wasteland that is Provo at this time of year.

We traveled on like the great explorers Lewis and Clark or possibly like a couple of pioneers.  The cold began to chill our bones and souls again. We were so close to Smiths though! If we could just get in there and warm up it would be ok .The grocery store seemed to taunt us. The farther we walked the farther away it seemed to get. Somehow we made it to the grocery store.

Because we were cold, hungry, and almost home we celebrated with some Thai food! The restaurant was very empty and quiet but the food was good and much needed. From there we only had to walk a few blocks to get home.

Soon we were walking past the other doors in our apartment complex. Our home was only feet away. Then we were standing outside the door. We turned the knob and pushed. Nothing happened. Was it locked? Could one of our roommates have locked it? Ok. Ok. One us has a key right? You gave your keys to Z? But where are her keys? Oh, they’re inside. See, if you look through the window they’re right there on the counter.

Ok readers this is where you need to pay attention. Now, that we knew we were locked out we had to put our secrets to use. The first thing that I always do is start walking towards campus. The library is always a warm place to hang out until you have somewhere to go. (As long as you make it there before 12)

So we began to walk towards campus. Bike Yoga made phone calls to our various roommates to find out when they were going to be home. As it turns out fate was smiling at us that moment and Cowgirl (one of our roommates) was in the library. We were able to meet her there and obtain a key, a beautiful precious key to our apartment, a key to rule them all. We swiftly made our way home and rejoiced in the warmth of our kitchen!