The Camping Grinch

By Sharie Derrickson

I believe that there are three things one should not do on the spur of the moment – get married, launch a space shuttle, and go camping – all three are recipes for disaster. I am happy to report to you that I have never indulged in any of these three, even this past weekend when my husband and daughter asked me if I would like to go camping.

“Mom, dad and I are going to go camping this weekend. Would you like to go?”

“Will there be tents and camping food?” I asked excitedly.

“There sure will.”

“Then no. Sorry. I don’t camp. Camping is the worst invention of mankind. More so than the rotary engine. Ten times worse than red dye number four.”

“Okay, Grinch,” she said, annoyed.

Here’s what I don’t get. We live about two miles from where they decided to camp – and here is their excuse – they wanted to get away from it all. See, when I want to get away from it all, I usually want go someplace where I can’t drive home to check my email – like Borneo or Tennessee or to 20,000 years ago to the Stone Age. Now, if we were cavemen, it would be quite possible to get away from it all by camping. The caveman would pack up his cave wife, two cave children and his cave dog, leave the cave, walk about fifty feet and set up camp. “This looks about as good as any,” he would say. “Who wants a s’more?”

I doubt the caveman went to Wal-Mart and bought camping chairs, Tupperware bins, rain tarps, lanterns, grilling tools, and a gallon of bug spray – no, he just grabbed his fire-making kit and said, “Let’s get away from this dank old cave for a couple of days and go camping.”

“That would be nice, dear,” cave wife would say.

Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe Mrs. Caveman responded more like I would. “That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard. You want to take our children away from the relative safety of this cave, which I work so hard to make nice, by the way, and subject them to the dangers of the outdoors? What about pterodactyls? Have you thought of that, genius? What are we suppose to tell the children when they see their beloved pet get carried away by a pterodactyl? Are you going to pay for their therapy? And bugs. Have you forgot about them? Have you seen the size of the mosquitoes? It won’t be you up all night covering them in calamine lotion. No. It will be me. And s’mores! What are you thinking? Have you looked at their teeth lately? Junior looks like something out of “Deliverance.” He’s got holes in his teeth big enough for a herd of wooly mammoths to walk through. Sometimes, I wonder, behind that huge brow of yours, if there is a brain at all. I should have listened to my mother and married a Cro-Magnon and not a Neanderthal.”

I like Mrs. Caveman. Anyway, my family and I compromised. They could go camping down the road, and I would come visit during the day. In theory, it sounded pretty good, anyway. I had forgotten something about camping, which is, I hate camping. I have always hated camping, which is why I joined the Navy instead of the any other service.

Army recruiter: “So there young lass – how about joining the Army and being all you can be?”

“Will I have to sleep in a tent?”

“Probably.”

“Then no. I don’t camp. Sorry.”

Marine Corps recruiter: “Semper Fi there young devil pup. How would you like to join up and be one of the few and the proud?”

“Yeah, uh, is there any camping involved?”

“You betcha.”

“That just isn’t going to work for me. Tents give me a rash.”

Air Force recruiter: “How would you like to go off into the wild blue yonder and see the world?”

“Are there any tents involved in this wild-blue-yonder stuff?”

“Yes, sometimes, but we are the Air Force and our tents are air-conditioned.”

“Not good enough.”

Navy recruiter: “So, there young swabby – how about joining the Navy. It’s more than just a job, you know – just like the poster says.”

“Will I have to sleep in a tent?”

“Absolutely not. You might get a metal rack in a sweatbox with 80 other people in the windowless belly of a ship that floats somewhere in the middle of an ocean for six months at a time, but you definitely will not have to sleep in a tent.”

“Okay. Sign me up. I’ll swab decks. I’ll peel potatoes, and I’ll chip paint off all your battleships, but I won’t sleep in a tent.”

“You’ve made a good choice,” the recruiter said, pushing paper and pen in front of me.

Back to my story – so each day, I would wake up to the phone ringing, and with each call, my husband and daughter were exposed as the haphazard campers that they are. “Mom, are coming down to camp today?”

“Why, what did you forget? Not the cel phone, I see.”

“We need some food. All we have is stuff for s’mores and warm water because father dear forgot ice.”

“What did you have for dinner last night?” I asked.

“Dad ordered pizza.”

Or:

“Mom, what are you doing right now?”

“I’m watching television under the fan while eating ice cream. Why?”

“Well, when you are done, can you bring me some stuff?”

“Like what?”

“My bike, a deck of cards, my CD player, and my nail polish kit. I’m bored. Oh, and dad needs the extra battery to his laptop and some calamine lotion.” In the matter of two days, half our house was moved a couple of miles down the road. And, as my family sat around a campfire staring at each other Saturday night wishing they could admit their camping defeat and come home, I sat snickering at the image on my computer screen that showed a giant red mass on Doppler radar. “Heh heh. This ought to be good,” I said as I watched the red blob move closer to the campground. “I wonder how long it will take them to realize that I was right, as usual.”

Then, as the rain began, something incredible happened
and much to my fright
my anti-camping heart
grew three times that night.
Camping wasn’t about mosquitoes, or damp clothes,
or soggy sandwiches,
or being bored.
No, camping was about family,
and bonding,
creating memories
and then my heart soared.
I felt all warm and fuzzy
and wished I were right there
picking s’mores off a stick.
I knew I had to get there,
I had to get there quick.
Then came the thunder
and then a lightning flash,
and another came yet.
And then I said, “Nah.
They’re idiots.
Let them get wet.”

© 2006 Sharie Derrickson. Previously printed in the Thousand Islands Sun.

The Garbage That Keeps on Giving

By Sharie Derrickson

My sister routinely cleans out her house of unwanted stuff by gift wrapping it and sending it to me, something I call Rummage Re-gifting. Last week, I got a whole box of coptic jars, which, as you might know, are Egyptian jars used to hold organs after a mummy is embalmed. I am not sure why she has these jars, and I am even unsure why she is sending them to me. I have decided I shall use them as jam pots, and not to hold organs in because that is just creepy.

She also sent me all of my brother-in-laws magazines called something like, “Government Executive Magazine.” I looked through the giant stack for grocery coupons and sweepstake contests, but there wasn’t any. There weren’t even any of those little things that drop out of magazine that you can use to order a limited edition Elvis plate with, and a magazine is not a magazine unless you can order a limited edition Elvis plate, in my opinion. I have decided that I will slip a few of these inserts in to the magazines and inconspicuously leave them at my dentist’s office.

Years ago, I thought my sister just loved me a lot and that is why she would go out of her way to find unique and unusual gifts for me. As I said, all the gifts come wrapped, but I recently figured out that she is ridding herself of those spare pieces of wrapping paper that are always clogging up closets and shelves. I caught on when I got something wrapped in Bat-mitzvah paper.

She has also sent me coffee cans full of empty plastic film canisters, egg cartons with twist ties in them, the “TV Guide” for the years of 1987 – 1991 (which she said I should have because I was living out of the country and would be able to know what happened on television during those years – apparently, “Dynasty” went off the air in 1989, something I had no idea about and I was wondering how Blake Carrington stayed so young.)

So, it seems my sister has read in one of her many magazines (which I now have) on how to pawn off her spring-cleaning junk on me and at the same time, make it look like she is doing me a favor. I now have the stub to every airline ticket she has ever purchased (which she says she thought I might like to have incase I need a telephone number for an airline because I can never find my phone book and you can never have too many airline ticket stubs), and I have a copy of every Chinese menu she has ever had left on her car window along with a Chinese/English pocket dictionary because, as my sister says, I need it since I travel a lot.

Well, kids, what goes around, comes around, as the saying goes. I have started to compile my own stack of trash to send to her. Now, the key to getting revenge is proper planning. I have set up shop for this in my spare bedroom, a room I now call, “The Revenge Re-gifting Room.” It is stacked to the ceiling with boxes and bags of stuff that needs to go. I have divided up the junk into a couple of categories – my sister’s birthday, my sister’s Christmas presents, and things to be sent at random to show my sister how much she means to me. Since her birthday is approaching, I will start with that one.

First, I found appropriate wrapping paper – used aluminum foil. You know, I always feel so guilty tossing out the aluminum foil when it has only been on the tuna fish in the refrigerator. I mean, what a waste of our natural resources. So, I decided this was the perfect way to recycle the foil and maybe help our planet.

Each gift will get a tag made from those tags you pull off new clothing. I know. I’m a genius. Instead of ribbon, I use rubber bands – you know, the ones that come on your mail. All you do is tie a couple together and voila, you have a decorative ribbon to put on your package. There are several ways to attach your gift tag to your present, including chewed gum, used leg wax strips, and thumbtacks. Remember, it’s the thought that counts so don’t worry about aesthetics.

Then, I began sorting for her birthday box. One thing I have a lot of is undeveloped film. If you are lazy like me, you probably have buckets of rolls of film you have shot over the years, but have just not had the time to take to be developed. I put a roll in each of the film canisters she sent me. I attached a note. “Dear sister, since we don’t get to spend too much time together, I thought you might like some pictures. Enjoy. Love Sharie.”

Another thing I have a lot of is notebooks. I have kept every interview note ever done for the past three years – pages and pages of spiral-bound information that I don’t have the heart to throw out, but I have no use for them. “Dear sister, since we don’t get to spend to much time together, I though you might like to read what I have been doing. Love Share.” Done.

I have several drawers in my house dedicated to pens. In fact, I should confess to you all that I am somewhat of a pen kleptomaniac, so watch me carefully should you ever let me borrow a pen. I’m not to be trusted. Anyway, these drawers are full of pens that are either out of ink, or are broken. I don’t know why I keep them and maybe I need medication. I will ask the doctor next time I see him – and steal his pen, of course.

I wrapped each pen, about 85 of them, secured them tight with a rubber band bow and a note. “Dear sister, since we don’t get to spend too much time together, I thought maybe we could correspond more. Love Sharie.”

Then, there is the other drawer – used batteries. See, old batteries are not good for the environment, so I don’t throw them away, plus I have a fear that if enough batteries are thrown into landfills, the polar charge of the earth could reverse and cause another ice age and I don’t want to be responsible for that.

I have made plans over the years to do things with them, but I haven’t come up with any good ideas other than a Christmas wreath made from batteries, but nobody wanted one when I asked. “Dear sister, I thought you could use these. Love Sharie.” I didn’t tell her they were dead batteries – not my problem.

Old newspapers – yes, just like you, my house if full of them – all sorts of them – including the ones already wrapped in plastic during free delivery days that sat by my mailbox for three weeks. So, I stuck a note on each one that read something like, “Dear Sister, read a story in here somewhere and thought you might get a kick out of it. Love Sharie.”

I then packed up her box using all the Styrofoam peanuts from the Christmas boxes, along with my entire collection of dryer lint (don’t ask) and I am going to mail it as soon as I can find a pen to address the box with. Maybe I can steal one from the post office.

And remember, revenge is best when served C.O.D.


© 2006 Sharie Derrickson. Previously printed in the Thousand Islands Sun.