I’ve never really been a big hiking person. The way I see it, most places you go are technically hiking. A zoo is hiking with guaranteed animals. A mall is indoor hiking with gradually-increased weightlifting. But the activity we call “hiking” is just the hiking part. Nothing else.

But perhaps you enjoy hiking as a way to get out there and turn your mind off and “find yourself.”

Just don’t get lost finding yourself.

Because how much fun is hiking, really? Yeah, it’s a cheaper activity than anything, but once you factor in getting lost and everyone having to take off and go make a kiddush Hashem to help find you… How long can you get lost at an amusement park, tops? You just go to the office and have them make an announcement. Maybe the woods should have a PA system, where you’re like, “Shmerel, please come to the office. Your group is looking for you.”

This is why I prefer amusement parks—purely from a safety standpoint.

Take the hiker in Colorado this past fall who was lost for 24 hours. The local Search and Rescue put together a search party, and everyone was looking for him, but darkness was falling and he had not yet been found.

And you’re thinking, “This should not happen. Every hiker should have a cell phone, right?”

He did. And they tried calling it several times. But he didn’t pick up, because, as he later said, “I didn’t recognize the number.”

I’d rather die than talk to someone I don’t know.

I guess I get why he didn’t answer the phone. Because what if it’s a telemarketer?

But I mean, it’s confusing. You’re always told, “Don’t talk to strangers.” Unless you’re lost; then you can talk to strangers. But only on the phone. Because what are they gonna do? They can’t kidnap you on the phone. Are they going to come out to meet you in a woods that’s swarming with rescue workers?

So he just kept hitting “ignore.” He was like, “Uch, I keep getting calls from this same number! It’s bad enough that I’m lost!”

“‘Search and Rescue”? I don’t know any Search and Rescue. It’s probably spam.”

Why wasn’t he trying to call people he knows for help?

Wait… Why was no one he knew calling him? Everyone who knew him was like, “Eh, let him stay lost.”

I know that if I were lost, my parents would not call me. They would say, “Let’s wait for him to call us. He never calls. You’ll see.” And my wife would not pick up if she was on the phone with literally anyone else in her life. This is why I don’t go hiking.

Wait. Not even the people who reported him lost?

Anyway, it turns out that he had no idea anyone was looking for him. He didn’t know he’d been reported. How do you know if you’ve been reported? He wasn’t around when they reported him. He wasn’t in on this decision. But I mean, his friends could have called him and said, “Look, we reported you missing. If you get a phone call from a number that says, ‘Search and Rescue,’ pick up!”

The truth is that not everyone who’s missing is aware that he’s missing. It could be that everyone else is missing.

Take the story in Turkey of 50-year-old Beyhan Mutlu, who was out drinking and he wandered off into the woods, and his friends couldn’t find him, so they reported him missing. There was a huge search party and everything.

Eventually, Beyhan sobered up and saw the search party, and he didn’t actually know who they were looking for, so he decided to join in. Especially since this person they were calling for had the same first name as him. It was like it was meant to be!

He thought, “I’m going to join them, because I know that if I were missing, I would want people joining in to look for me.”

And no one around him realized this either. Were they not given a picture or something? Maybe everyone in the search party should wear something so everyone knows they’re not the one everyone’s looking for.

Or maybe people should’ve tried calling his phone.

“Dude, your phone is ringing.”

“I’m not answering it right now. I’m busy helping you look for this lost person. Priorities! So how’s it going?”

“It’s going to voicemail.”

Anyway, the search party was calling out his name for a while, when suddenly, Beyhan said, “Wait,who are we looking for? I’m right here!”

“The last name is the same as mine too? What are the chances?”

There are probably a lot of Beyhans in Turkey. There were probably several in the search party, yelling, “What? Oh,” every few minutes. My guess is they were the ones shouting out the last name.

So anyway, it suddenly clicked, and Beyhan yelled, “That’s me!”

And no one believed him.

“What a weird sense of humor. Stop fooling around and let’s find this guy.”

Finally, he found one of his friends in the crowd, and he got his friend to help convince everyone that it was him.

Have you ever had everyone around you visibly upset at you that you’re not missing?

This brings us to our final article for today, titled, “Scientists Are Teaching Drones to Hunt Down Human Screams.” This is a headline that sounds a lot more terrifying than it actually is. It’s actually good news. It’s for safety purposes!

If they can get this done, it would be great for helping to find lost hikers, except that the hikers generally stop screaming for help by the time a search party is put together, and also the search party keeps screaming, so the drones will keep finding them. Unless the hiker joins the search party. But this way you won’t lose a second person at least.

More likely, though, the drones would be drawn to the home of anyone who has kids and is trying to work.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].