The Once and Future Madame

We're getting ready for writing proficiency tests in my classes lately, and I gave this lame-o (but probably once used for the real test) writing prompt to my students to practice the heightened narrative form:
Describe an adventure you've had in your life, and how it impacted your outlook, positive or negative.
The imagination of an 8th grader is far-reaching and grand, but sometimes they need a little jumpstart. Or a thing-like-when-you-start-up-a-mower -- whatever that's called, that's what they need. So a student asks me, "Can you give us an example?"
And I pull the first thing out of my head that I can think about, trying to keep it simple, because I don't want to get too philosophical or crazy-like in a silly little example. So I tell them about driving out here, me in the MINI with the cat, Buckwalter in the Lancer with a whole heap-load of clothes, and our friend Marathon Man, broken wrist, cast and all, in the big old truck with all our worldly possessions, driving huge shifts, with no chance of getting a rest from behind the wheel, and collapsing at hotels at night. (Marathon Man, who, by the way, I'm assuming is still alive, because I'm pretty sure Muffin would have mailed us an obituary if things had really gone poorly for MM.)
I play it up, make it sound crazier than it was, until I realize -- it was pretty crazy.
There are moments when I'm driving home from work, or from lunch with Buckwalter, and I realize that I live here. Crazy doesn't even begin to describe it. Well, I guess it BEGINS to describe it, but it doesn't measure up. Here we are. No one around that we know. No old friends. The closest family is 4.5 hours away.
If that's not an adventure, I don't know what is.
But it sure was nice to talk to an old friend again tonight. (Adventures, even duo type ones, get lonely at times.)