Has anyone here ever been TRAPPED?

[Sugar Smack]

I mean, TRAPPED. There was no reasonable exit in sight. I'd like to hear your stories, and I'd like to tell you mine.

I worked in an isolated Alaskan fishing lodge for 2 1/2 months one summer. I was with 5 people. As the walls closed in on us, we civilized people became extras in "Lord of the Flies" (played out at the Overlook Hotel). It was classic cabin fever.

There wasn't access to a phone until you were an hour away by boat. An hour & a half brought you to Ketchikan. No TV, no news. We had only each other.I'd volunteered to do this because my ex's pal had gone crazy working there and my ex and I were still friends.

I heard the alarms after only 2 days. Everyone else was vociferously describing how lucky we were to be in "God's Country". Describing the bay we were looking at. Yakking about how beautiful it was, ad nauseum. Once in a big fat blue moon I'll appreciate something in silence, and that's when suspicious eyes turned on me. Did I mention my boss, "Grace", was my ex's mother? She began authoring such statements as, "Oh, I don't think SHE likes it here." or, "What's wrong? You don't look happy." I wasn't PISSED, for fuck's sake, but
sometimes a woman likes to stop smiling for everybody once in a while. It fucking wears you out. And I didn't laugh for the months I was there. Not once. When I came back to NC and laughed, it was a creaky noise.

I was baker, sou-chef, bartender, launderer, maid, hostess, fish cutter-and-gutter, waitress, wood-gatherer, water-purifier, and generator-checker. Grace and I had been family before that trip, but she turned on me. She hated me the whole time in AK. She started drinking every day at 10 am and would see three of me by noon, which leads me to believe she'd had enough. She'd clean up after my cleaning of the kitchen. I was inadequate in every way. 2 1/2 months of being in the company of people who had decided I was a troublemaker but they were stuck with me. I had no one to talk to, and I was kept out of the "info loop", which means, "need-to-know-basis" according to my ex.

People started turning on each other, and loyalty was a tenuous thing disguised as safety.

When I got back to NC, I actually kissed the ground before running up to Dad and giving him a big hug.

I want to hear your stories of being trapped. Whatever the circumstance, if you felt trapped, I'd like you to post it. Thank you. You all are the greatest.

[Longgrain]

1. Hey Sugah, there you are, that's quite a story.

I never knew you worked in an Alaskan Fishing Lodge...OUCH!

That must have be hell.

[Sugar Smack]

4. Oh, it WAS, baby,

Our sanity had been stratched so thin, people were desperate for amusement or distraction.

They started making up noises and sound-effects to get other people to laugh. It worked. I had to steal a bottle of gin, go up to my balcony, and read for the 2 hrs of "down-time" I had. When I saw the words, "The End" in a book, my foul mood caused me to throw the book into the water.

"PLOP".

At least I got to see the Northern Lights.

[Longgrain]

8. PHHHT...I've seen the Northern Lights from Massachusetts.

They are beautiful tho.

[Worst Username Ever]

2. I worked at a boy scout camp one summer and slept in a tent for 10 weeks.

I was 21. I didn't have a car at the time, so if I wanted to leave for my one day off a week (it was a 6 hour drive back home, so it was kind of pointless to drive six hours, essentially fall asleep, say hello to everyone, and leave again to drive back) I had to beg borrow or steal someone's car. I couldn't even leave the scout reservation because everyone had different days off, and it was rare that they overlapped with mine. I couldn't even leave to see a movie. Plus, since I was a medic, I couldn't even walk along the roads without someone recognizing me and running up to me to ask about some bug bite they got. I literally had 0 time to myself unless I wanted to hide in my tent (which I did, just me, my mosquito netting, a book, and a gas lantern). I recall one of my solutions was to borrow a sailboat and spend a couple hours out on the lake or go kayaking by myself for awhile, but unless I was out on a boat or holed up in my tent, I was a constant target.

[Sugar Smack]

5. My God-

How long did that last? I thought I was a lot stronger than I turned out to be.

I think among DU'ers, privacy is a big issue (if we're not talking about the exhibitionists among us). Privacy is special. How did you feel when you got back from that?

[Worst Username Ever]

13. Actually, a large sense of accomplishment.

I should add that when I was hiding, I wasn't shirking my duty, it was either my day off or I was carrying my pager/radio for them to get ahold of me. But afterwords I was exhausted, poor (it didn't pay much), unshaven and dirty, but it was a great 10 weeks in the woods! I was MASSIVELY relieved to be done, but I am glad I did it. One tough thing is that you have to constantly have the happy/excited camp counselor thing going for the scouts, and it is hard to keep that up when you are mentally exhausted and a little annoyed at the things I mentioned in the 1st post. :hi:

Oh, and 10 weeks of camp food? I don't recommend it. I am a skinny one anyway and I still managed to lose 10 pounds.

[Sugar Smack]

21. It's almost like being on one of those damned reality shows.

WITHOUT the comfort. I'm reminded of a Leonard Cohen song- "you wouldn't like it here/ there ain't no entertainment/ and the judgements are severe"

it's true, Worst Username Ever. It makes you stronger, and it gives you a good story to tell. You seem to feel the way I do about the whole thing. You're changed, and more to the front of your mind, appreciative for the dignity you have right now.

:hi:

[hfojvt]

3. story of my life

any time it rains, I feel trapped indoors. Trapped in crappy jobs, trapped with no job, trapped in the single life, trapped in poverty and celibacy. It is all a big trap, and I am late to work.

[Sugar Smack]

6. HEY! Hope you don't miss this-

you have a job. So did I. I really thought I was going to DIE out there, but some things actually pass. Is this a permanent job for you? Seriously, esp. when the ex and I had to be rescued by the Coast Guard, I thought we were going to die.

Trapped in the single life is what I am sometimes. Give it an hour, seriously. Just succumb to it.

[Bok_Tukalo]

7. OK. A story.

I grew up in rural Oklahoma and Arkansas. Very rural with little opportunity. At 14 while on my hands and knees in chicken shit, catching chickens as the first cog in the poultry processing industry, I had my epiphany that this is my future if I do not get out so I directed my life with that goal in mind. I wasn't obsessed about it, or even marginally competent on how to achieve it, I just knew that I would leave the day I graduated from high school from that moment on. College wasn't an option because, well, I'm Working Class (and that's being generous ... most call us white trash) and the money, not to mention the guidance and direction, just wasn't there. Like many ... ahem ... rural Working Class whites that find themselves without much prospects, I decided to join the military. I figured it was a reasonable bargain with The Ruling Class; they give me a leg up, possibly to be leveraged into a future in the Middle Class and I stand ready to protect their interests (I was pretty cynical at a young age) should they need me.

When I went to basic training at Ft Dix, the initial processing was mellow and bureacratic. Alot of "move along" and "next" and "turn to the left and cough" and nothing that bothered me. I was just an automoton marching from line to line doing what I was told.

But when that was over and we were assigned to our training units, things changed. And they changed ... abruptly. We got on a bus, like other buses we got into to be moved from point A to B, and I slipped into my typical reverie (probably something along the lines of "so this is New Jersey ... Jersey ... a whole 'nuther state. New York City isn't far ...). Then the bus stopped and a drill seargent came in the door. I was near the front so I had the opportunity to see this person up close. He did not look to be in a conciliatory mood. I instantly got the "something's up, pay attention!" vibe that focuses you to your surroundings.

<barely audible> "What are you doing on this bus?"

<a little louder> "What the FUCK <several jerks awake> ... are you doing on this bus?"

I'm pretty quick on the uptake and it was very clear this fellow didn't want us on the bus. So I start doing the "have I got all my stuff?" check so I can oblige the man and get off the bus (odd how, when focused, 'then what?' doesn't really enter into your mental calculus).

<shouting now> "WHAT ... the FUCK ... are you DOING ... on ... MY <nice twist that> ... BUS?!!!"

<full blown berzerk> "GETTHEFUCKOFMYBUSYOULITTLEPIECESOFCUMSPITTLEFUCKSHITMAGGOTS.... NOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!"


We got off the bus.

At this point, about 1 week into a four year enlistment, the full weight of my decision hit me. I was in the Army, and it freaked me the fuck out. The chickens weren't looking so bad all of a sudden. Mom, brothers, sisters, laughing friends, and beautiful girls who attached themselves to me with such ease whispering in my ear how different I was than all the other boys were all back there and all I had to do was deal with chickens and Working Class and there are Working Class people that are happy aren't there? I saw it every day. What was I thinking? Am I just a shallow snob? Too good for those that embraced me? Was I that desperate to run from the people that loved me because I arrogantly held them in some thinly veiled contempt?

I didn't feel so much trapped as I felt punished. It was a self imposed sentence for my own narcissistic disregard for my home and I felt nothing but shame and dread.








But it got better. They stopped yelling at me after awhile.

[Sugar Smack]

10. HOW LONG does one go through Boot Camp?

The fact that you were alone really sums up the tyranny of such an experience!!!

Class is such an Issue in America that nobody ever discusses it. It's that "elephant in the room" that nobody'll touch. That's why I love the book "Class" by Paul Fussell. He says things none of the rest of us would dare say. There's a chapter at the end, too.."What About the Rest of us?" It was written in 1982 but is still applicable today


The only Reality-Show I've ever watched was a show by that name. "Boot Camp": My father said the only time he'd ever experienced the pain I was going thru was boot camp. My God, "Dread" is the worst thing you could possibly feel, waking up day after day..

[Bok_Tukalo]

12. 8 weeks at the time

Thanks for the book suggestion.

[progmom]

15. do you write for a living?

you should.

[Bok_Tukalo]

17. You are way too nice

That bit was choppy. I'll work on it.

Funny thing is, part of my occupation is writing. But it is the equivalent of stereo instruction so I guess that isn't what you really meant (I just finished a catalog a month ago ... hooray!).

[Sugar Smack]

18. I'm doing catalogs, too!

:loveya: :loveya: :hi: :toast: :toast: :bounce: :bounce:

[Sugar Smack]

22. Progmom's right, you know. You really should get paid for it.

What ever happened to your "cig-line", btw? That was funny!

[lateo]

32. You tell a good story...

I am prior service too...perhaps I will rummage around for one of my old stories...

:)

[Karenina]

9. I was 8 years old when the realization struck me

that I was TRAPPED in a body and that it's description would profoundly affect my engagement with my environs...

[Sugar Smack]

11. Tell us how-

A body is itself, so I'd like to know how you began to consider it a "trap".

fondest wishes,
Steph

[Karenina]

25. It was shortly after I was called a "nigger"

for the first time. It in itself (the body) is neutral. Actually it has been MORE than a loving and generous host to my spirit and I do appreciate it. I owe my lifelong observations and understanding of "projections" to it. But my very presence often kinda upsets folks when they realize everything they've assumed is false. They often become quite aggressive...

Ich rede nur um Frühlingsmüdigkeit. If you like jazz, mebbe get Mark Murphy's version of "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," imagine the melody on the English horn and we'll be on the same page! ;-)

[Sugar Smack]

27. Karenina, thank you for clarifying! That was a really good

and powerful bit.
:)

A few days ago I was engaged in a conversation with someone about "appearances" and "reality" and "conjecture". The trouble you got from people who became aggressive, I'm assuming is from having to correct people who have you ALL WRONG. This is a minor but reoccurring theme in my life-being a short female who's been patted one time too many on the head in her adult life.

Sometimes, Karenina, Ich hasse Leute(sp?)!

*going to take you up on your jazz reccommendation*

[mark414]

26. that is a lot of truth

for such a little girl to swallow

[DS1]

14. Aboard the USS Mount Vernon, a Landing Ship Dock LSD class boat

which translates to a troop carrier/amphibious tank launcher.

The Navy guys decided to go to General Quarters, and sealed us down in the berthing areas in the bowels of the ship. That was the point where I realized how expendable the Gov't really considers us, despite the jingoistic bullshit coming from the top. If it had been an engagement with an enemy sub, taking the big drink was inevitable, but we didn't even stand a fighting chance.

I'm sure some subbers have some much more interesting stories than this little thing.

[Sugar Smack]

20. How long were you there, DS1?

And how did it feel? I don't mean to sound like an MSN photographer, but did you feel like you were going to die there? It sounds like it!

[MidwestMomma]

16. Went to Colorado over spring break in college one year

I rode out there with a couple of guys I kind of knew and was supposed to meet some friends out there and get a ride back.

My friend backed out on me and there I was high in the Rockies with no way to get back to Kansas. I had no money, no car, no way....

I ended up selling my personal stash so I could buy a plane ticket back to Kansas. Had to talk someone into driving me to Denver. That person basically dropped me off at the airport. Didn't really know where or if I would be able to buy a plane ticket. (I was not an experienced traveler.) Found a ticket home but had to wait for 8 hours at the Denver airport. Flew into Manhattan Kansas airport without anyway to get back into Manhattan. (The airport was a bit out of town.) Ended up asking some family if they would give me a ride into to town. (Bless those people.) I was never so happy to see my little apartment.

Actually the worse part wasn't being trapped in Colorado without a way to get home but that the reason I was stuck there was that I was betrayed by a very good friend. But that's another story....

[Sugar Smack]

24. Hey, MidwestMomma!

:hi:

Betrayal by a very good friend is not another story. It's the same one, my sweet! That's why AK was such a tragedy in my case.

You went through a lot and you have a really good story to tell. I could actually feel it, through your description. I could feel your bewilderment, sense your anxiety, and thoroughly appreciate your relief as you set your bag down, just inside the front door, and switched on the light to your apartment.

Betrayal by people you trust? It registers as the worst kind of shock. I've never been in an earthquake, but I have the sense that when the ground you stand on, the ground beneath your feet that never moves & holds you upright, suddenly pulls itself from under you, it takes a while to realize what happened.

:hug: :hug:

[Jamastiene]

19. There have been many of incidences where I've been

trapped. And I'm sure many of you have heard them before on DU. I couldn't agree with you more about the fact that sometimes we want to just quit the smiling bit. I listen to all sorts of crap at school and my face hurts when the day is done sometimes. It gets old.

[Sugar Smack]

23. Honey, I swear, that "Put your Happy face on" stuff

sold to women in our early stages is exhausiting. It arouses suspicion and contempt in others we thought we trusted when we feel confident enough to think without smiling.

Appreciating something in silence- that's the same issue. If I'm caught just looking at someone I love and they ask me, "What's up?" I won't hesitate to tell them, "I just like looking at your face."

But when you're in a group of people whose objective it is to grandstand for the sake of personal power/safety/God knows what..it's really confounding.

(resisting...smilie...resisting..)

[Sugar Smack]

28. *shamelessly kicking own thread*

:kick:

[Longgrain]

29. Shamelessly kicking Sugah's own thread...

}(

[valis]

30. I was buried alive. Almost.... Been screwed up since....

[Sugar Smack]

31. Alright, elaborate-

even if you have to make something up!!

:D

[valis]

33. Ok, here it comes.

I'm terrified of spiders. I have an extreme phobia of them. One night, when I was a child, there was a huge spider on the ceiling. I told my dad and he showed me how you catch spiders. He took a stick and pushed it under the spider. The stick got caught a little and then springed back, underneath the spider. The result was that the spider flew on my face and I totally blanked out and fell, hitting my head. When I woke up, I had no clue where I was, but it was a constrained space. I could hear muffled sounds. Some crying, some singing. I thought I was dreaming or something. But I could barely breathe. I started screaming and tried moving, and I suddenly realized i was in a coffin. I ketp screaming and hitting the walls of the coffin. Apparently, my mother must have heard something because everything went quiet and I head banging on the coffin. Short story, they got me out of there... You know, small town in the middle of nowhere, the doctor said my heart was not beating and I was not breathing, after the spider accident... Terrible experience.

Enough?

[Pithlet]

35. OMG! That is horrifying

I have severe arachnophobia as well. The spider part seems worse to me than the trapped part. :scared: You poor thing.

[MisterP]

37. holy...

*stumbles, falls on rear*

[Sugar Smack]

42. Whoa. OK, that really does it.

I was not able to imagine what being trapped was really like until I read your story. Where did this take place? That is probably the scariest thing I've ever read. Valis, I daresay you're a lucky person.

[katinmn]

39. Wow. Just wow.

[Pithlet]

34. I'm a stay at home mom. So, all the time.

When the weather is bad, and the kids and I are trapped indoors. I've become an expert at entertaining bored toddlers. But, it can seem confining sometimes.

[Karenina]

45. Katinmn is on about physical entrapment

her post reminds me of scrambling over a peak in Switzerland, rocks falling away under my feet, STRAIGHT DROP DOWN... but I maintain the PSYCHIC is the WORST. My children are now grown, Gott sei dank. Mention CHICKEN POX and I am immediately transported back to the torture box. They contracted it succession. I thought I was gonna die or go fundiemom on them...

[DawgHouse]

36. You have a way with words

and I enjoyed your post. I've never experienced anything as bad as your experience was, but I did get trapped in an elevator for a while once. Alone, too. :( Pretty creepy.

[Sugar Smack]

48. Thanks, Dawg-

OK, I'll confess that being trapped in an elevator is one of my more hellish moments. And I've had that happen, too. I will not belittle the fear you must have felt. How high up were you? I was about 30 stories, myself.

[katinmn]

38. I still get a nervous stomach thinking about being trapped on top

of this. Tikal in Guatemala.
It might not look like it, but it's many feet up there. The steps are about 1-1/2 feet apart. Once you are at the top and look down, you can't see any steps. It's like looking straight down at the earth. You have to have faith that the steps are really there. There were no guard rails. I'm afeered of heights anyway. My then-hubby tried to reassure me but I tried and tried and couldn't move. One of the rangers saw my dilemna, climbed up and tried to coax me down, too. The turning point came when he said it happened to someone else and a helicopter had to be called in from Acapulco or somewhere and it cost the tourists many thousands of dollars.

Hearing that, and becoming more embarrassed than afraid, as a small crowd was gathering below, I finally backed all the way down, clinging to the steps just above my shoulders every step of the way.

[bridgit]

40. well, ok…

Sugar…i bookmarked your thread cause i thought i might be able to contribute at some future point in time, and, well…reckon this is it.

initially, though, i ran the gamut on the same ole ‘trapped in’ ‘trapped out’ scenario’ = in failed marriage/relationships, out of being able to pick up credits for degree completion, and other forms of yada-yada stuff. but i have to tell you, i was then flushed with a sensation; thee sensation of being trapped. and so i’ll lay it out to all y’all this way…

my mom & dad were never married. maybe nothing special: there. they fought hellishly so long as i can remember. petty, vindictive nonsense always &: forever. my mom hated me. i know this because she told me so. she told me i’d better get an education because i was too funny looking and no man would ever love me. but i wasn’t too funny looking for my ½ brother as he wouldn’t stop raping me from the age of 7 to 9yrs. my mom wouldn’t believe me and so she started up to beating me.

as a teen and after one such beating, i ran out and went to a party here in town, got drunk, and left with someone that i thought i knew. sacramento, hubby calls it ‘little big town’ but then he’s from l.a., so maybe it’s all little stuff…still, the point is, is that this ‘acquaintance’ rolled us, he & i, into the rice patties not far outside town and began raping me himself. when i fought back he fought harder punching me in the face with a closed fist which made me swoon. when i came round i seen him pull out a: knife.

so far as i know, allot of that stuff is just like ‘they’ say it is = it all becomes a timeless, slow-motion blur. i don’t remember all that much about that particular sequence; but i remember him slitting my throat and gasping through my own blood for air. that, i should say, and tumbling down a short levee and into a ditch where he left me to die.

it took me what seemed like forever to climb back up to the road where i was picked up by a beer bellied trucker from provo, ut, who ‘muscled’ me up and into his cab holding my throat after laying my head on his lap all the while saying, “i’m late coming down the hill!! i have two daughters!! i’d have been here sooner but i had to have two tires changed out! who would do a thing like this!?!”

i remember him kissing me on the forehead in the er. the nurse’ said he came back the next day to ask about me but i never saw him again. i have no idea if anyone here @ du believes in such things, sometimes i think they don’t, but that beer bellied trucker dude was an angel imho.

after my recovery, my mom started up with the beating all over again and one day i picked up a phone and smacked her in the head and knocked her ass out. shortly after that i became ‘girl interrupted’ and had to pray through my tears for my daddy to intervene telling him i couldn’t bare the confinement & the drugs they made me take. and so he did. participating against the ill will of my mom my dad was able to have me legally emancipated when my shrink stood up and told the court that the problem resides inside my mom’s head and not mine. but by then i had been telling them that since i was 7.

my dad and the ‘proper’ authorities helped me get my own apartment @ 15 years of age. i had to promise to go to school and achieve. i am considered white trash by too many. but i got a scholarship to ucla and then a degree in theatre arts.

some would say, “theatre arts? how apropos…” then came: the trapped marriage/relationship bullshit.

life isn’t too short it’s too stupid. don’t let’m kid’ya kid

but none of that really matters i suppose; when i originally thought the point of this, my post, to be the recollected sense i had like none other, when he pulled that knife: TRAPPED. wide-eyed sinking trapped & helpless: churning the pit of your stomach into primordial states of potential loss & dislocation.

TRAPPED? i: been there, SugarHoney. at least it seemed that way at the time.

now we live our lives honestly, and with a sense of innocence wherever possible. which is part of why i laugh when certain long term, or ‘resident’ du’ers don’t much care for the ‘indecipherable’ quality of my posts. walk a mile in my moccasins, here in this world where men, woman, and children sit, stand & fall. here…

where the Sioux have no word for: goodbye.

for you, Steffi

your cheese ball, bridgit

ps, I got my big girl pants on btw love’ya ~

pps, at 238 stitches the wound was angry…

[Sugar Smack]

43. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

I'd be speaking gibberish if I were you, bridgit. I'd be looking things up in order to locate what I'd lost. What on earth can a little girl like that do? Nothing.... I'm sorry, but I'm boiling right now. I can't even think of any words to say.

I love you, 'Pants.

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

Big time.

[Taxloss]

41. I was born in India. In 1998, aged 20, I returned.

India is an astonishing culture shock. My mother and father had been there in the 1970s running an Oxfam agricultural developement project in Orissa, a large tropical state on the east coast. We (my best friend and I) flew into Delhi - an awful flight - and arrived at about 6am Indian time, middle of the night British time, absolutely exhausted by jetlag.

Somehow, through the most awful heat (this was two weeks before the Monsoon, the hottest time of the year) and total exhaustion, we found our hotel and managed to get three hours of sleep before meeting with a friend of my father's for lunch - she was head of Oxfam Delhi. We did not sparkle at lunch.

Nevertheless, arrangements had been made. My father had been in touch with both the friend we met for lunch and another friend in Calcutta, and between them they had arranged an itinerary for us to tour the "Golden Triangle" - Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and site in between - before taking a train to Calcutta and Orissa. This "tour" was with a domestic tour operator which mostly dealt with south Indians touring the north.

We had to catch the tour bus that evening, still exhausted. Some things we could leave in Delhi, but we had heavy packs and by 10pm - at a stage of tiredness I have never seen before, or since, and hope never to see again, close to total collapse basically - we boarded the bus.

Indian roads are not good. The suspension on Indian buses is not good. And this bus had its radio, or a tape player, blaring music the whole five-hour journey. With the exception of one man, who fell asleep and slumbered happily most of the journey, no one spoke English.

At that point I understood exactly why sleep deprivation was such an effective torture technique. We could not sleep. I smoked at the time, and had no cigarettes. We were utterly trapped.

And at that point, that one, most crucial point when I was close to total collapse, my best friend decided to start talking about a problem he was having going down on his girlfriend. At the time, I was single and unhappy about it. To this day, he has no idea how close he was to death.

At 3.30pm we arrived at the "hotel" in Agra. A tiny room with one double mattress in it, between three people - me, my friend, and the English-speaker.

I would have stormed out. But I didn't speak the language and had nowhere to go, and I was too tired.

But then, the English speaker said to me:

"Cigarette?"

Since then, I have quit smoking. But that moment, and remembering that moment, means that I will never harangue people on smoking, because that night that cigarette saved my life.

[Sugar Smack]

44. "To this day, he has no idea how close he was to death."

THAT's classic!!

Sleep-deprivation will take you into as dark a place as you'll ever know. And being stranded- my ex got us stranded near Ketchikan. We talked about how good a can of beans would taste at the time, he smoked half my cigarettes, and we had to roast and split a fig newton, the most odious of all cookies ever-between us!

I started looking at him as though he were a chicken leg, deep-fried and lightly seasoned.

[Taxloss]

46. It's amazing how personal loyalties distort under pressure.

I love this guy. He's my best man. But I would have struck him dead at that moment for just one second's peace.

[Sugar Smack]

47. Peace- and I expect "privacy" had something to do with it as well.

Just like somehow my ex and I (sort of) survived AK. Things were a little different after that. We were not the same people who had gone into it so open-mindedly.