Today I had my first real encounter with QUICKSAND! When I was a kid, sometimes we would dig holes in the yard, fill them with water, and then jump in and howl "QUICKSAND!" but this today was real quicksand, just like the movies. My friend gave me this book on dowsing, so I thought I would give it a try. The book said to get a y shaped stick and hold it in both hands and then walk around thinking about water. When the stick is over water, it is supposed to point to the ground as if it is compelled by a magnet or something. I took TJ, my trusty companion, and we headed out to the Northlake park on the north side of Denton where the frisbee golf course is. I selected an appropriate stick and set to "dowsing". I walked around looking at the stick and thinking about water. Nothing really happened so I decided to chant something to myself. I squinted my eyes and began whispering "find me some water, stick" or something like that. Still nothing. I decided to do a test to see if I could dowse some water that I knew was there. I went down to the lake and began to walk along the shoreline, trying to get the stick to point to it. Just when I thought that I might be onto something, I stepped into what I thought was a hole. When I looked down what I thought was a hole was actually my leg, knee deep in the ground. It was very confusing because the ground looked hard and dry but yet I was sinking into it. I tried to launch myself out of the quicksand but with a sucking noise, the ground pulled in my other leg too. I wasn't scared like the people in the movies, mostly just annoyed. Annoyed that my dowsing attempts had gone awry and then that I was now stuck somehow in the ground. Every attempt I made to move sucked me a little deeper until I finally grabbed onto some reeds, pushed down with one foot as I pulled the other out, and pulled myself up onto an embankment. I thought all was well until TJ walked right into the quicksand behind me. He thrashed around for a little bit but then, in true TJ fashion, he stopped and just stood there, waiting for me to get him. He looked so funny in there, only his head was sticking out of the ground and it looked like it had just sprouted there. I dragged him out by his collar. Both of us were covered in black, gooey mud and in much need of a pressure washing. TJ went first.