It’s mid-July and I smell like a beast. I’ve got bugs in my hair, marshmallow on my face and God knows WHAT that is stuck to my foot.
I forgot to pack my deodorant and I dropped my toothbrush in a patch of poison ivy. My sleeping bag hasn’t been washed since … well, ever, and I’ve been sleeping in damp shorts. I smell like wood smoke and bug spray and Cheetos and I have absolutely no fear of wild animals. If a bear attacked, it would take one whiff and run off screaming for its mama.
It’s how they settled the West, you know.
Camping, like golf, is never as good as your memories tell you it is.
When someone invites me into the wilderness, I go happily. I’ve always loved camping, by golly. In my head, it goes like this:
It’s early evening and the air is fragrant with wood smoke. A site over, a young man is playing guitar and singing mellow songs. Stars blaze in the sky, uncontaminated by city lights. Oh, look! There’s Orion! Why, it looks like you could reach out and touch that great hunter’s sword.
Through the trees, you can see that the Gundersons have put their kids to bed and now they’re enjoying wine and beer in the flickering light of the flames. Good people, the Gundersons. You had to show them how to get their fire going, but they’ve been doing pretty well otherwise. You wander over to their site, weaving through the trees and listening to the sweet sound of night birds.
Hello, Gundersons, you say. Can I offer you a S’more? Why, yes. Thank you, we’ve never had a S’more. And look how perfect they are! The chocolate melted just enough and not a single bug dying in the marshmallow. Delicious. Thanks, neighbor!
The Gundersons send you off with a bottle of beer. He brews it himself, Martin Gunderson does. My, how rich and ice-cold it is! Later on, after everyone’s had a few bottles of the stuff, the whole campground will gather around your fire (because it’s the biggest, of course) to sing jaunty camp songs. Deep into the night, you’ll be crooning classic hits such as “Wheels on the Bus,” and “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley.” Not to mention, “B-I-N-G-O,” because Bingo was his name-o.
You’ll tell ghost stories so perfectly crafted, grown men will scoot a little closer to their wives. Children will gasp and peer at you between splayed fingers. When you get to the part where Three-Fingered Willy comes back to exact his revenge, a twig will snap deep in the forest, right on cue. Everyone will utter tiny screams and then laugh at themselves for falling for that old yarn.
Later, we’ll all head down to the lake, shedding our clothes on the way and jumping into the bath-warm water balky bare. We’re all adults here, and is there anything better than skinny-dipping in the moonlight while owls hoot approvingly from the trees and crickets serenade you from the tall grass?
Later on, you’ll crawl into your sleeping bag, exhausted from the fresh air and vigorous swim, and you’ll sleep like a newborn baby with not a care in the world. Ah, summer. This is what it’s all about.
Snap out of it, chum, you’ve been daydreaming. You’re standing there clutching your very last match, your hands bleeding and your wife is glaring and swatting bugs. You’ve been trying to get a fire started, but the wood is damp and your little pyramid of kindling keeps falling over.
It happens to all guys, am I right?
One one side of your site, that horrible couple is screaming at their kids again — miserable people, the Gundersons. One of the kids is bawling while the other is picking his nose and throwing clumps of dirt at your tent.
And speaking of your tent, what the heck did you do to the zipper? It doesn’t close all the way so now a million mosquitoes are already inside, waiting to relieve you of half your blood. It’s been raining off and on and the bottom of the tent is leaking badly, muddy water soaking into your reeking sleeping bag. Seriously, did you think you were going to get a quality tent at Rite Aid, Grizzly Adams?
Late arrivals keep coming down the road with their high-beams on and their radios cranking thrasher rock. On the other side of the Gundersons, a bunch of teenagers are lighting firecrackers and whooping it up. It wakes up a baby somewhere and now that baby is screaming nonstop. You totally get that kid. You’re about one bad minute from screaming yourself.
The family who used this site before you left a bunch of dirty diapers strewn around the lot. Somehow, you didn’t notice this until you stepped in one.
You’ve been trying to charge your cellphone so you can use it as a flashlight (seriously, didn’t your wife tell you a dozen times to pack a flashlight?) and now your car battery is dead. Something smells like feet and it might be you. When it’s time to go to bed, you’ll find that you put the tent up on a massive root that will playfully poke you in the kidneys all night long. Fortunately, you’ll barely notice as you splash back and forth in your soaking blankets and swat at mosquitoes. Don’t you worry; before long, your wife will start swatting those bugs for you. Oh look, dear. There’s one right on the end of your nose. WHAP!
By the time you finally drift off into a dazed sleep around 5 a.m., one of the Gunderson kids will be just waking up. He’ll ride his bicycle back and forth, ringing the bell as he goes and pausing occasionally to throw stuff at your tent.
The Gundersons are horrible people.
When morning finally comes, roughly 500 years later, you’ll find yourself cooking inside a tent that’s hot enough to bake bread. Your kidneys will be screaming and you’ll be so swollen with bug bites, Rocky Dennis would cringe at the sight of you.
There’s an empty puddle of dirty water next to you because your wife is already up. There she is now, sitting at the picnic table next to the heap of wet, unburned wood in the fire pit. Is she making coffee? Perhaps frying up some eggs on the camp stove?
Nope. Filling out divorce papers. She’ll leave you the tent and mildewed sleeping bags, but take everything else. The house, the car, the 401(k) … She’ll even take your beloved dog and sing to you as she drags it away.
And Bingo was his name-o.
Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer looking to pitch his broken-zipper tent in your living room. Email him at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.
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