CAMPING
★★★★★ (1 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing camping.
Camping is hard. I’d never done it intentionally before, so this past weekend I decided it was time. I gathered together everything I might need and put it all into my car. I left a note telling my mailman where I would be in case I disappeared.
None of the camping advice out there describes what to do when you find a family camping in the spot you wanted, just because they reserved it and you didn’t. This is exactly what happened to me. I figured we could share the space, but they had different ideas.
When I set my mattress up next to their tent, I immediately began to receive a lot of cold stares and whispers. And when I stared longingly at their dinner because I had forgotten to bring any food of my own, there was a lot of turned backs and over-the-shoulder glances.
I felt bad for causing any tension during their vacation, so I decided to extend the olive branch with an improvised shadow puppet show, cast on the wall of their tent with my car headlights. Unfortunately they had to leave before I could finish.
Laying on a mattress under the stars is both beautiful and terrifying when you don’t have the awkward company of a strange family. With no one else around, every little sound sounded like a bear or puma waiting to attack me. At one point I actually crawled under my mattress. For a calmer camping experience suggest bringing earplugs.
Another tip is to put your parking break on, otherwise you may find the next morning that your car has silently rolled away and is hiding in a meadow and that a park ranger is writing you a ticket.
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing my left shoelace.
