Conventional Wisdom

(Historical Notes: …aaaaaaaand here it is.  I remember having to think REEEEAAAALLY long and hard about how I wrote the original commentary for this one, lest I go too dark and break the tone of the comic or get a lecture from some tumblr psychiatrist or whatever.  It was to the point that, again, I honestly have trouble remembering what I wound up actually publishing and what got cut, especially since I’ve frequently talking about this night in the years since.  In retrospect, that’s pretty ironic, given what’s being depicted here.  So you know what?  Screw it.  Let’s get real.  I had a nervous breakdown my first night in the van.  Like, seriously.  I dunno if we’ve got a new buzzword for it now or what, but I completely snapped.  For around eight straight hours, I just snapped.  I was a panicking, irrational, terrified, weeping mess convinced every single sound I heard outside was somebody coming to either violently mug me or, worse, kick me out of the parking lot.  I’ve gone through natural disasters that didn’t mentally break me as bad as that one sweaty, sweaty night.  I was so far gone that, if it weren’t for the fact that I knew somebody was counting on me for a ride back home on Sunday, I would have just bailed on the whole con and tried to drive back home right then.  And then died in a ditch somewhere in South Carolina after passing out at the wheel.  It sounds like I’m making a joke here, but I’m completely serious.  My judgement was so compromised by around 1 or 2 am that I genuinely did seriously want to head back right then, despite being at nearly two days with no sleep by this point.  I am one hundred percent, no hyperbole, sincerity mode activated convinced I would have been killed in a car crash that very night if I didn’t have a prior obligation to stick around until Sunday.  So, yeah, thanks for needing that ride, Kurt.

So, long story sort, my living conditions for AWA 2018 were so bad that I legitimately believe I could have died as a result of it.  Let that put any complaints about that one hotel where the minifridge didn’t work into perspective from now on.)