Shamone!

A good friend of mine regularly sends me texts which mean absolutely nothing but, more often than not, leave me either with a smile on my face or an embarrassed look because I've just laughed out loud in a crowded store. I try to return the favour when I can and hope he experiences the same pick-me-up to his day as I do, although as a true friend I hope there are more embarrassing moments.

This morning I received a text and opened it... my usual interest in its contents aroused. There it was... the first word in the text.... Shamone. To get a full appreciation for this word I believe telling the story of its inception is appropriate, if not a necessity.

I recommend taking a cross country trip on a Greyhound once. Thats it... just once. As in, one way. Fly home. I guarantee you will see things you always wanted to and some things you wish you never had. A certain butch looking transvestite and his very diminutive, very senior cowboy escort come to mind. That, however, is a campfire story.

There were two of us and we wanted to travel to California and do some serious bouldering, and Bishop, being the bouldering mecca of the US, was the destination. Our usual day consisted of waking up at 6am, it was just too hot to sleep any later than that, and pack our gear for a good solid morning of climbing. We were usually on Highway 395 by 6:30am with a pack filled with 5 or 6 bottles of water; a crashpad (that doubled as a sail on windy days); and a first aid kit. It was approximately a 3 mile hike up into the desert to our climbing spot. After about 4 or 5 hours of ripping the skin off our fingers, sitting naked on rocks, and dodging rattlesnakes, it was then time to head back to the camp and get showered up before grabbing a well deserved bite to eat. From the campground to the edge of town was about a mile hike down Highway 6. One particular day I was really really really hungry. Like the wolf. I really wanted to get moving but Bri seemed content to relax. I don't blame him... we'd been climbing for a few straight days now and killing ourselves doing it. Then it happened. I don't know where it came from or what made me combine the words "come" and "on" in the way that I did, but SHAMONE was the command that Bri got. I'm not sure why his reaction was as such, but I distinctly remember him losing it. Laughing that is. It was the word of the trip and, if my memory serves me correctly, that camp season too!

I love that word. Its one of the things I'm proud of. Seriously. Is that weird? I don't think so... it is what it is.

Here's to a great word.... SHAMONE!