Camping is too “in tents” for me

by Scott Klepach, Jr.

I thought the summer season was going to come and go without the talk of camping. But I was wrong. We’re about ready to head out for a tent camping trip in a few short hours.

Camping. The very word delights most people.

Not for me.

I think of tics, murderers, and bears. Oh, and cougars, too. Or as my daughter Elise calls them, “poogars.” Except that they are not so cute when they are staring at you hungrily several yards away.

I’m not a camper. I know I’m probably in the minority on this point, except in the family I grew up in. Growing up, we never went camping. Not once.

In fact, the closest we came to camping was staying in an Embassy Suites  hotel in Bellevue – you know, kinda like camping with all those plants and jungle décor indoors.

Heck, I may even have a one-up on all those campers in this region since the hotel resembled a place that could contain lions, tigers, and gazelles. (OK, so I know that last animal isn’t alarming like the first two, but it goes well with the setting I’m trying to convey.)

But we will be camping for several days, and I still have to contend with lions – the mountain variety – and bears. Snakes, too. And other people – strangers, really. And who knows what else is lurking out there. Bigfoot? Demons? The cast of Jersey Shore?

I’ve been camping before. Really, I have. My wife, who loves camping, has made sure of it. And you know what? I caved and agreed that I could handle it. And this trip won’t be the last one … I suppose not, anyway. I hesitate not because I question if my family will want to go camping again, but instead that my above fears will come true.

The last thing I want is, in the dark, lonely stretch of woods away from civilization and cell phone service, is to get caught in a situation with “The Situation.”

Read the follow-up to the camping trip here.