Camping Trip!

This weekend I’m going camping with some folks from church. Now you might be asking yourself, “Why would someone want to go camping?” It’s kind of hard to explain, but let me give it a try. You see, you spend lots of time and money trying to create a great place to live for you and your family – a place that’s modern and not lacking any creature comforts. This is not an easy process, and sometimes you may find yourself lacking the motivation to keep trying to improve your situation. If this is the case, then you know it’s time to schedule a camping trip. Camping is a great way to remind yourself of how crappy life would be without that house. When you go camping, you are basically volunteering to sleep on the ground, eat burnt hot dogs and get devoured by bugs…so that when you’re done, you’ll have a renewed appreciation for things like beds, electricity, air conditioning and toilets. Two days of camping will have you hugging your toilet like a long lost friend, and as you bask in the glow of your climate controlled room on your spring and mattress bed you’ll find yourself bursting with a renewed commitment to your offensively boring job.

Of course, you don’t want to get too crazy with it, so you need to make sure that you bring some important items with you for your campout. Sleeping bags are an important item that no camper can do without. When shopping for a sleeping bag, be sure to select the thickest, fattest, most puffy one you can find, because sleeping on the ground sucks. It’s all bumpy and there are lots of little rocks that hurt when you lay on them for 5 hours straight. Also, be sure to bring plenty of toilet paper – leaves are not an acceptable substitute. You don’t want the kind of hurt that wiping with poison ivy can put on you. Plus, in terms of texture, leaves don’t have that “cottony-soft” feeling that we’ve come to expect when cleaning up. Leaves aren’t that durable either, and this isn’t a time when you want something crumbling on you.

Camping is fun, but there are safety issues to be concerned about if everyone wants to come home in one piece. Making flame-throwers out of aerosol cans is fun and brings a certain level of excitement to the campout, but be sure to keep the flames away from other people’s tents. Having someone’s tent catch on fire can put a damper on the entire evening…just ask my old Boy Scout troop leader. (true story…2am in the morning this guy wakes up to the shouts of his troop, and the first thing he sees is the left wall of his tent ablaze…) Remember too that sneaking around at night trying to scare other campers may result in your being clubbed repeatedly with a large stick. At night in the woods, campers don’t know if that noise they keep hearing is you or a coyote. The only sensible choice is for them to assume you are a dangerous predator and to treat it as a life-threatening situation. They’ve usually scored several nice shots to your head before they realize that you are not a threat. Then you get to go campout in the hospital waiting room. Also, flashlights are indispensable tools that can assist you in the midnight bathroom run. You should not play the guessing game when trying to find a good spot to go to the bathroom, as peeing on a wild animal or fellow camper will set events into motion that will not be easily resolved.

One quick note on camper etiquette – please note that campers are no longer obligated to tell the traditional campout “spooky” story about that guy who loses his hand and gets it replaced with a claw.

"Huh....what? What was that noise? Dean...is that you? I'm serious man...don't mess around...(picks up large stick)...Dean?"