Hitch-hikers/Hitching

[scotty]

Do you pick 'em up? Or give em a wave as you drive by with a completely empty car? Ever been a hitch-hiker yourself?

I used to hitch heaps. Thumbed up and down the east coast when I was a younger. I even met my wife on a hitching trip while travelling up to the Byron BluesFest. I don't pick them up if I have the kids in the car with me and sometimes because I know the person and can't be fucked dealing with someone whose as mad as a cut snake.

[Helvete]

I thought people onnly hitchhiked in horror movies, and we all know what happens in those.

[abcdefz]

I've picked up a couple, and I've been one once. The time when I did hitchhike it was interesting -- the old dude who picked me up made sure to show me the handgun he had in the visor first thing. I said okay and bummed cigarettes from him for the rest of the trip.

[icy manipulator]

i hitched once with a friend when i 12. wasn't as scary as i thought but looking back it was prolly a stupid thing to do

[Yeti]

I have never picked up a hitchhiker but I did hitchhike once when I was in High School. I did not do the thumb on the road hitchhiking. I was outside of a restaurant near the highway and asked for a ride. I was more comfortable picking who to ask for a ride than being chosen by a driver on the side of the road. A couple of college students at UVA gave me a lift. I went to see a friend an hour away in Charlottesville Va.

I got in trouble once for hopping a freight train with a friend. We ended up about 200 miles from home and my Pops had to come get us. It was a fun ride on the train but not a fun ride home.

[scotty]

The only time I thought maybe it was a stupid thing to do was once when I was got a lift from just south of Coffs Harbour at place called Pine Creek and a couple of days later the news was full of a story that the singer of a band called Sourpuss disappeared while hitching from the same spot.

On another occasion I got scared was when the dude I got a lift with got pulled over by the cops and I had a bag full of dope with me and I thought the cop was going to do a search, in which case I was totally fucked becaused of the quantity (two ounces, or thereabouts). It turned out that he only wanted to check out the dudes car, a fully restored Ford F150.

[QueenAdrock]

Never pick 'em up. I'm a chick. I don't trust any strangers, especially in our society.

There was one time in high school I got really upset over a situation that occurred and decided to skip out on the rest of the day and go see my brother at his high school...which I realized was actually close to 10 miles away about 2 miles into it (I had no real concept of distance when I didn't have a car). After about 2 and a half miles of walking, two girls drove up in their car and pulled over and said "My friend and I saw you walking on the way to the store, we see you walking now, you've been walking for quite a while. Would you like a ride?" I thought it over, they seemed like nice girls, early 20's, so I said sure and got in. I told them why I was upset, they were sympathetic, they told me about their boy problems. One had gotten an abortion the previous week. Their names were Dawn and Bonnie. I got to the high school, they said they were astonished that I'd actually want to walk all that way because I'd arrive probably around 7:00 at night.

High school was fucked up, I'm so glad I'm out of that shit now. But anyways, that was my one "taking rides from strangers" story and I'm not sure if that really counts as hitch-hiking, per se. But it was fun, nice talking to new people and stuff.

[Nivvie]

I picked one up once.

She was standing at the beginning of the exit road out of a motorway service station, and I did the drive-past-then-reverse-back thing, after deciding she couldn't have been more than about 16, and if I heard about some girl being last seen at a service station before her body was found dumped somewhere I'd have felt guilty forever. Turned out she was going home after running away with a boyfriend, and it had all turned to crap, so it was nice really.

But anyway, I've seen The Hitcher, so I'm unlikely to pick up any big dudes with big bags and long black coats..

[cookiepuss]

I've only hitchhiked once and I was with two male friends so i felt safe. actually..I guess I wouldn't exactly call it hitch hiking. we went on this 8 mile hike that ended up at the beach...and there wasn't enough daylight to hike back to our cars another 8 miles so we asked some young dude at the beach if he would give us a ride.:rolleyes:

I have only picked up a hitchhiker once...yeah I know, as a woman I'm suppose to be all afraid and never do that. anyway again i was out at the coast and it came to my attention that I was about to run out of gas..real smart. anyway I came in to this one little town and I saw a young hippie guy standing by the side of the road with his thumb out. (it helped that he was attractive, tanned and had his shirt open too. ha) He reminded me alot of good friend of mine. he had a happy shinny aura and I pulled over actually just to ask if he had seen a gas station around. he said no. I said where are you going? he sad: to Reggae on the River up north. I said well, listen...I'm headed into town, but in all likelyhood I may run out of gas and we'll both be walking..you wanna ride anyway. He said sure. He was cool. a really nice young man. a total Dharma Bum. and picking him up was GOOD KARMA because we coasted into town on fumes. I gased up, took him to our local bar, bought him a brew and told the bartender if anyone was heading North he could use a ride.(y)