As some of you know, I went camping this week. The reason for this is two-fold, one, I’m gainfully unemployed at the moment and two, I have an eleven year old son.
Let me first address the number one reason I went camping... lack of funds. But sadly, camping turned out not to be such an economical event. There are sleeping bags to purchase, camping items—cool things like long fork looking doo-dads that you skewer through bread and hold over the fire until it comes out looking something like toast. Does it taste like bread that’s been held over a fire, you ask? Why, yes it does.
Then there was the issue of what kind of a shelter to obtain, as I believe shelter is like underwear…a sufficient barrier should be maintained between me and the great outdoors. Well, I opted for the cabin that slept eight and cost about one-hundred bucks a day. I’m not quite sure how they thought that four twin size bunks could sleep eight, maybe professional campers are quite thin. Or they spoon.
To schlep all the things we brought, I rented a pick-up truck. ”I don’t need the extra insurance” is what I told the nice man at Enterprise. These words came back to haunt me when I backed into the tree and left a big dent in the bumper.
There is a lot of dirt involved with camping. There is a home clean, and a camping clean. The camping clean is “it’s clean enough.”
The rules for washing dishes have changed since last I washed dishes under a spigot in Clear Lake. You must take the dishes, wash them, dump the “shmutz” in the toilet, and then return to your campsite for the final rinse. Yeah right. I miss the good ole days when all the campers shared one spigot and all the crap piled up high until it looked like goulash on family night.
On our first night there, across from us, was a nice enough looking family. This family consisted of a mom, a little girl named Grace, (I know this because Grace had a tendency to wander in to the road, and her parents would SCREAM her name at the top of their lungs) and the father, who must have thought Guinness was at the campground somewhere because the man had to have the world’s record for loudest burps. Every few hours or so, he would let out a belch that could make your ears bleed. My son and his cousin were quite disappointed when they departed the following day. And now they practice so that one day, they can burp as loudly as he did. But as his gas settled along with the sun, I was happy to hear him pull out his guitar and start strumming. Until I heard the tune...I am not making this up...to Deliverance. Dear God, I thought, I must lock my husband in the cabin. I don’t think I could stay married to a man who squealed like a pig. Thankfully, his burping skills far outdid his musical inclinations and he soon put his guitar away and we all settled down for a night under the stars.
Being over forty and camping presents a new set of problems. Number one is my bathroom at home is close, and during the night I visit.... a lot. So, I had to improvise. This is called peeing in a cup and hoping my aim was good and tossing out the cabin. You may ask yourself why I didn’t shine a flashlight so I could see what I was doing. Well, without the Pink Floyd music, I didn’t think it would have been much of a light show. So, I eventually became quite adept at this cup thing and If anyone hears of a pee-tossing event held at some county fair, please keep me informed.
