Lost in a bottle

That night I drove aimlessly, lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I just smiled at life, everywhere I can.

I started believing in the moments of life, specially those little ones which we miss seeing. The ones which pass us and we're never the same ever again. We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware—beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.“The greatest discoveries have come from people who have looked at a standard situation and seen it differently.” 

It was a snowy night on the eve of New Years and we 4 boys were driving from Vancouver all the way upto Calgary National Park in our new Ford F-150 and I swear, the amount of snow we had was un-imaginable… But still it was always a dream for all of us to get there by car and to reach there by New Years. And with that dream driving us, we started our lovely journey….

Myself and Martin were university buddies, where as Mike and Brady were roommates and since we all knew each other well, we choose to do this road trip all across the state of British Colombia. And we were so damn excited about the whole journey. We started packing the week before and still felt we had to carry more. Because the temperature dropped down to -4 we were so sure we need winter clothes and that the snow is going to torment us with all its fury, we packed special gear for the same.

As we started driving, we took the Trans Canada Highway – the famous national highway which connects the east coast to the west coast and is one of the most famous highways in the whole world. The road till Kamloops was awesome, we roomed in at 90mph and after that the forest areas had started and driving went a little slower than expected.

After 6 hours we reached Banff which is the border town of Alberta and British Colombia and we had a lovely sip of hot coffee and we refreshed ourselves from the tiring journey. There was a big KFC in Banff which all 4 of us couldn’t resist, so we thought we could have a lovely dinner and we packed a full 4buckets of meat with cola and all which make a happy meal for us 4. While we 4 boys got back to the car I never realized that Mike and Brady had packed raw liquor for all of us. And there was a full 2 boxes of beer, good enough to have us all in jail for the rest of the year. Little did I know that all of this stuff was in the back of our truck. Well, we started driving again and a few hours later at around 11:40pm we reach Valley wood, one of the out towns of Calgary and surprisingly it was very much woody and the snow was making it horrible for us to navigate through.. We had no clue which was land and which was road. After a while there was a checkpost in a distance. Since I was completely obsolete with what was in the back of my truck, I happily pulled over the check post and showed my license and registration to the cop standing by. The cop was busy on his mobile radio and asked us to wait for 5mins. And after around 10mins in the dark he came over with a torch in his hand and opened the back door and asked Mike to get down, he saw the 4 buckets of KFC and then he pointed his torch over the other side and asked what that was?? We all looked over and it was a whole bottle of Vodka sitting right there and I was flabbergasted when Mike opened his mouth on his own and said, he has only 2 shots…. !!!

I looked at Martin’s face and I didn’t know what to say… I felt like chocking Mike and killing him for what he just did. In a few moments, Brady came close to me and said, “I just pray he doesn’t check what’s behind the truck; I said “Why what’s wrong with the back of the truck?” He said, “there are 4 bottles of Rum and whiskey and another 2 boxes full of beer” After hearing this I literally fainted. For a minute I had flash thoughts of me in jail with my parents crying and screaming, my dad trying to shoot me, my girlfriend breaking up and what not!!! I realized that this was my last New Years in the free land of North America. 

While all of us got down, we were all asked to sit inside the police car.  I got down along with my new Nikon camera, I had just got it from the boxing sale and it was brand new. It had a lovely 16 shutters per second and was an amazing machine. I was just looking at the few last pictures of my life which I took before I was being thrown in jail. While the officer was trying to check the others for documents and writing a report to place us on arrest, there was a sudden headlight zooming our way, and it got even more intense with the passing of every second.

In a few seconds, the zooming headlight, crashed inches away from us, injuring the officer and throwing him on the side of the road, the car crashed the post and drove away. I somehow I managed to take ma camera and take 2 shots of the back of the car. Even though we tried to go and attend to the officer, we couldn’t open the back door of the car, since it was a police car.

After a few moments the injured officer with wounds on his hands and shoulder came over and opened the door and yelled in the radio of what has just happened. He spoke that he didn’t know who it was or what make the car was… In that moment I slowly said to the officer “Sir, if you need can I show you the picture of the back of the car which I took?” He looked at me and said “What?? Are you sure you have it with you?” I said, yes I managed to take 2 shots of the car’s back side. He quickly took the camera and read the number plate to the central operator. After 15 minutes, the officer came over and opened the back door and asked all 4 of us to come out. He smiled at us, and looked at me in the eye and said.. “Son, we have caught that mongrel and he was the guy who burgled last week in one of the shops in the city” and I thank you for helping us nab him. Your quick thinking really saved our day. He returned my documents and thanked us once more. Mike in the meantime, took out the 4 buckets of KFC chicken and said lets celebrate, so the officer and us all enjoyed our New Years eve in check post deep down Canadian winter land and I was still praying that he shouldn’t check the back of the truck…!!

Finally at 1am that morning on the 1st of January 2007 we reach Calgary National Park and we drove deep into the woods to set up tent and after laughing over about all what happened, I asked the rest of the fellows to open the bottles, and Mike replied, we have none..!! I said “What?? You said you took 4 bottles of liquor, where are they? Mike replied, while the officer was checking his stuff on the radio, I was quietly throwing the bottles one by one into the leafy woods.” I looked at Mike and smiled and said “So beer it shall be boys” and we all jumped into our beer cans and lifted them high in the air yelled our cheers and laughed and danced around our little camp fire deep in the woods.

Boys and Girls, your lives are what you make of it, so go out and enjoy it with your best and make sure you make memorable moments with your loved ones. Life is once; never miss it as it passes - “Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought”.