Just staaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhp. Seriously. I don't want to sound mean, but by all objective measures, you are dumb AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF AF!
Yes, that's at least fifteen AFs, one for every two or three of you who has managed to get lost or die up here since your Wild Potato Jesus took his $100,000 philosophy degree from Emory, hitchhiked to the 'Banks with nothing but a 6 oz. bag of Lays BBQ potato chips and a dream, tromped 28 miles into Denali in a pair of donated Wellingtons, shot a moose, let it rot because he didn't know what the actual fuck he was doing on any level, crawled into his sleeping bag, and starved to death in an abandoned Fairbanks city bus. (Side note: Poison Berries Bro was born in El Segundo, where Q-Tip left his wallet, and where Chris McCandless apparently left his marbles).
And for whatever reason, all y'all basic dumbfucks won't stop trying to replicate this pilgrimage to the Mecca of Moron. I know. Chris McCandless was a Free Spirit and really Knew What Mattered in This Life. John Krakauer said so! He was the Henry David Fucking Thoreau of trust fund hippies, but with an even better beard. He Died Doing What He Loved. He was Free from the Material World. He was a Better Man Than Us All . . . aaaaaaaaand alsoooooooo as Meghan Trainor might say . . . blah blah blah, I be like nah to the ah to the NO NO NO.
Wilderness Schmilderness. You need to quit this shit. You are costing the State of Alaska hella dollars and time it doesn't have, not to mention risking the lives of the competent, charitable strangers who are rescuing your hypothermic asses, and stressing out your friends and relatives.
Yeah, I'm talking to you, two bros from Atlanta who earlier this summer were the subject of a 20-person manhunt plus one helicopter when you were late returning from good ol' Bus 142. Also that chick from Switzerland who drowned trying to cross the Teklanika River. Sucks that you died, sister; truly, no disrespect. But jumping in the Tek just to snap a selfie in front of a Semi-Famous-Thanks-to-Sean-Penn-and-Emile-Hirsch-Hunk-O'-Rust was not a good look. And I'm talking to you, dude from Mexico, who was recently found alive after a ranger warned you that you were not leaving enough time for your little perambulation into the forest.
And now what?
You're a reason for people like me--who won't take out their own garbage because they're scared of bears (and guns), can't even manage to get on a treadmill once a week, and will probably deservedly die of a heart attack caused by pulled pork tacos and bad karma on a paved trail behind their house--to come for you on the internets over how you're a giant pile of derp for letting yourself get fucking owned by Alaska.
Whatevs.
If it's one thing I've learned from years of living up here, it's this: I'd rather be a lazy coward Monday morning-quarterbacking your bad decisions and throwing you shade from behind a laptop than a dumb, dead headline myself.
Love,
O.H.M. AK.
