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Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it's hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place —Louis L'Amour

I almost died last week.

That was a new experience for me. I'm sure that from a certain point of view, I 'almost die' a number of times every day; careening down a highway in three tons of steel surrounded by a bunch of other ballistically challenged, caffeine-deprived zombies, living on a fault line set to go off a hundred years ago, standing under a sky full of astral sledgehammers hurtling through the cold darkness at relativistic speeds.

But last week I actually felt it... or, at least, I think I did—since I lived, I suppose I'll never know how much longer I could have gone. Quite probably, I was never in any real danger, but I actually feared I would die.

I was camping.

Long story short, I was bullied into going by the local scout troop, and I had to borrow a bunch of equipment. Desert nights get cold—the kind of cold that leaves bodies for the vultures— and I spent the night shivering, and praying that on the off chance I fell asleep, I would wake up.

Everypony else was chipper and energetic the following morning, but I had discovered just how exhausting sleeplessness and shivering could make a pony.

I told my woeful tale to my wife—the only pony who hasn't chuckled at my misfortune, and she suggested that perhaps my experience could be turned to my benefit: I now have the experience I need to write coldness honestly. Or, given how much everypony snickered at my pain, I might have a future in stand-up comedy.