Camp Tales

It has occurred to me that I have many camp tales, as many as Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. Hell, I have enough to fill a book--like the time Aaron took a dumper in a Pringles can. I'll get back to that. In fact, I'm going to blog about them all in due time, one by one.

But for now, I'd like to bring up a fly or two in the ointment known as "Camping."

Campsite Irritable Bowl Movements--

OK, no one likes to talk about this, but as you grow older, no shit, you start noticing weird rumbles down there that you never had in your 20's. 15 years ago, I could eat 3 brats-n-onions, drink a six pack, eat a large pile of candy corn then sleep like a rock on the ground and be up and running in tip-top shape the next day. Not so much anymore.

Does this situation sound pitifully familiar?:

You're laying in your tent, about 4:00 a.m. when your stomach starts rumbling. "I shouldn't have had 3 s'mores with that six pack," you chastise yourself. Suddenly, you sit straight up in your tent only to realize you have to take a dumper. NOW. As in RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. But there's all these complicated zippers on your mummy sleeping bag. You pull desperately and only proceed to catch the lining of your mummy in one of the zippers. "Shit!" you mumble, quite literally, as the grumbling in your stomach grows louder. Finally, you rip yourself out of your sleeping bag. The stabbing pains are coming faster now, but now you find the zipper on your tent door is stuck. Finally, you rip it open. You grab the toilet paper and pray you don't shit yourself, crawl out of the tent, the gravel digging into your kneecaps, then hoist yourself up to remember that the header is a block hike through the woods and sticker bushes, and what was that? A twig breaking in the distance? You remember the park ranger's warning about bears. Frantically, you realize you don't have enough time to safely make it to the header. Waddling in pain as fast as you can, you barely make it about 20 feet from your tent door and end up in a less than attractive position and praying that you won't forget where you did this shameful act and end up walking in it.

Ahhhhh, yes. Getting old.

There's more later. You can count on that. This is one OLD, seasoned camper.