Three pairs of students stand at the front of the auditorium, squatting back-to-back with arms interlocked as seven others get ready to sit on them. We’re about to play musical human-chairs. I’m not sure if this is some PG-version of “The Human Centipede” or what, but it makes for quite the ridiculous image. I’m at a meeting for the Mountaineering and Whitewater Rafting Club in the Calcott building, where members meet every Monday at 8 p.m. It’s one of the first meetings of the year, and the entertainment is a silly way to break the ice. As soon as “Get Back” by Ludacris starts to play, the eliminations begin. A few songs and many uncomfortable moments later, a winner is crowned and the actual meeting begins.
Once the officers explain the $60 dues and what that price includes, they talk about the trips. The group takes a trip almost every week, their most recent an eight-mile hike to the summit of Blood Mountain, the tallest peak in Georgia. The nearest I’ve come to hiking eight miles is watching the movie of the same name. I’m the type of person who is more used to the hum of air conditioning and the eye-killing glow of fluorescents than the view from a mountain peak or the light of a bonfire. I imagine my reaction to finding myself on the side of some slope and hope it would be a bit more majestic than the awkward gait of my avatar jumping up the side of a mountain in “Skyrim.”
At every meeting, the group awards one person the honor of being the “Hardcore Player of the Week.” This week’s winner is Joe Marazzo, specifically for his help putting up the bear bags on the trip to Blood Mountain. Yes, there are bags designed to keep food out of reach of bears. When I learn people willingly decide to sleep outside in an area where bear bags are a necessity, I begin to question their sanity. I can barely sleep on a couch at someone else’s house. I don’t even know how to begin to imagine a forested mountain at night where any sound I hear might be a lurking bear looking for my Snack Packs.
The madness doesn’t stop here. The next trip planned is to Capers Island off the coast of Charleston. This group is voluntarily journeying to a place where the only food and water they will have is what they bring. More frightening, by far, is the island’s lack of Wi-Fi. I would feel sorry for the members, but it seems as though they enjoy the prospect.
The end of the meeting involves a rush to sign up for trips and pay dues, while two of the officers, Lane Moore and Brittany Scala, talk to me personally. Scala asks if I might join, and although the prospect of being outdoors for a forced period of time doesn’t thrill me, I still find myself tempted. People who play musical human-chairs must be some kind of fun. However, the introvert in me wins out and I return home, thankful for the four walls keeping nature out.
