It's a Jedi Mind Trick

When I was fifteen, my mom and I decided to take a walk to the mall.

That wasn't very riveting. Let me try again.

On a hot August day back in 1995 my mother and I decided to take a 20 mile hike. Our destination, the mall. (That was a bit better or at least more dramatic.) You might be wondering why we chose to do that. I'll give you four options.

1.Were we trying to recreate a chapter from the Little House books by not using a motorized vehicle?
2.Did we feel we needed more vitamin D in our lives?
3.Do we just love to shop that much?
4.Because we are genetically predisposed to mental illness?

I'll let you to ponder this a moment before I reveal the answer.

OK, so maybe about 10 or 11 miles into our "hike" my Mom began to feel like she couldn't make it the whole way.

"You can make it, Mom. I'll take your backpack. We are halfway there. Don't quit now," I encouraged. She continued on, and the remainder of our hike went like that. She sat and declared she couldn't go any further, and I would get her a cold drink and do my best "Little Engine That Could" impression and say, " I think you can, I think you can," and she'd get back on her feet and move forward.

She made it 18.5 miles before my dad came to pick us up. My Little Engine That Could was no match for that little red Nissan with a motor and four wheels, and she might have jumped in before he came to a complete stop. I, on the other hand, hesitated. I was only a mile and a half from the promised land. (Yes, I just referred to the mall as the promised land. I was fifteen; it was the promised land.) My dad took pity on me and walked the remaining mile and a half to the mall with me, and I arrived at the mall all sweaty and gross from a day of walking in the hot August sun with a backpack on my back and a fanny pack (yes, I just admitted that I had one of these on my person at one time in my life) and then and only then did it occur to me that I didn't want to go to the mall looking like that.

So I share this titilating story with you not to talk about how even when we think we can't go on, we always have more in us or how we should lift one another up and encourage each other on in the hard times. No, I told you this so you would see the pattern. Yesterday I convinced my mother to drive eighteen hours in one day to get to Jessica's house rather then stop halfway and sleep at a hotel like normal people.

The answer is four.