Were-Cats, Straitjackets, and Wind-Up Flashlights
Last week, I went camping not because I wanted to but because I had to. I was a chaperon for my church’s girls camp. Before camp all the girls and leaders seemed to be really excited about it. All I could think was, “Am I really going to have to sleep outside for four nights?” Maybe I’m spoiled, but I just don’t understand the idea of choosing not to have the luxury of running water, electricity and a bed when you don’t have to.
So I admit that I went into this whole camping thing with the wrong attitude. While I know I should’ve been more appreciatively of the nature around me, the joy of living in the great outdoors was somehow tarnished by the rainy weather and the fact that I couldn’t stand up in my tiny two man tent.
I struggled to get comfortable in my constrictive sleeping bag as the girls in the tent next to mine shrieked with laughter. At two in the morning when my bladder was bursting with the hot chocolate I drink before bed, I shuddered at the thought of wandering down the path with my tiny wind-up flashlight to bathroom.
There was shrieking in the woods–a terrible high pitched noise that sounded like someone was killing a baby or a cat. The next day one of the other camp leaders told me that deer where making the noise. The news was quite disappointing because I pictured some half-cat-half-man beast with bloody fangs tearing through the forest in his half torn off clothes. When I heard the noises again the following night I was convinced she must be wrong.
I have to admit that I spent the last two nights of camp at home in my own bed. It’s not because I was afraid of the were-cat in the woods or that fact that my sleeping bag felt like a straitjacket. It’s not even because the toilets stank and my flashlight didn’t work so great. It was just because I was finally able to openly admit that I just don’t like camping.
