Ha! That reminds me, my neighbor used a 1/4 gap and his whole shelf warped into a potato chip.

I used a product called type N mortar from Home Depot and mixed it myself, and it's still solid after 2 years in the rain... sounds like he cut corners with that sand mix.

Wringing out a sleeping bag at 2am in a drizzle" - yeah, that's basically the Appalachian Trail's way of saying "welcome to the real outdoors." $45 for a bag that can't handle a damp morning is a joke. I'd be paranoid too, honestly, after that kind of betrayal. Good luck drying everything out - hopefully the rest of your gear doesn't pull a similar stunt.

$45 for a notebook? That's wild. I'd be scared to even breathe near it.

I gotta push back a little on "the pit just decided it wasn't done yet." In my experience, that's giving the pit too much credit. It's not being stubborn on purpose, it's just that avocado pits have this really thick, woody shell that takes forever to break down, even in a bokashi bucket. So what you've got isn't a rogue plant, it's a seed that basically ignored the fermentation process because the microbes couldn't get through that tough outer layer. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd bet if you cracked the pit open first, you wouldn't see any roots at all. Your mileage may vary, but I've had better luck just cutting them up or crushing them before tossing them in.