How to camp

So you want to go camping. Beware, for this is a daring endeavor only undertaken by those not faint of heart.

Now that the disclaimer is taken care of, here's how to go camping:

First, you have to decide that you want to go on an adventure. After you surf the web and discover that an amusement park or another country is way out of your budget, you settle on camping because there's nothing like paying to sleep on the ground for fun. You then settle on a general location where you deem the ground worthy of your presence, and then postpone your plans because life and work sidelines you.

Fast-forward two months. You realize time is quickly running out for your excursion, so you make hasty plans, book a campsite, call up a friend or two and invite them, rearrange your plans because the grandiose ones you had before are simply too expensive, and then stop planning again because life.

Wait until the day of the trip to pack. Since you plan to be gone only two nights in a familiar area, you don't need to worry about bringing that many clothes. Never mind that the weather is highly unpredictable or that you'll be outside and very likely to get dirty; packing will be a breeze and there will be nothing to worry over.

While you're at it, you may as well postpone all of your planning until the day of the trip. Meals, clothes, cooking utensils, etc. Basically anything that you might take with you can wait until the day of. Of course, this doesn't mean that you can't gather all of your gear and make sure that you have it, but deciding what is important and necessary only takes a few hours and shouldn't be bothered over until the absolute last minute.

Once you get to the loading point of your trip, you don't really need to bother to discriminate between what you need to take and what is unnecessary, because let's face it: you'll be camping in the woods and the trunk of your sedan is infinite. It's perfectly feasible to cram the the entire house in there, let alone enough gear for four girls.

After the car is packed, go grocery shopping. Of course, you don't need a list, so just buy things from memory. This may or may not lead to buying things that are completely unnecessary, but don't sweat it because you have an infinite trunk.

While you're loading the car with your groceries, realize that you really can't fit everything into the car and maybe you do need less stuff or a bigger vehicle.

Opt for the vehicle and drive back to your house to swap out for a minivan.

Drive off again and show up at your campsite. Set up in the rain. Decide that you're hungry, so you work on setting up a campfire to roast hotdogs. Because everything is wet from the rain, the fire won't start. But that's the food that you have, so of course the fire's going to get lit. Enlist help from an eagle scout you find down the road. His fire goes out. Drive into town and wander around until you find a grocery store to buy charcoal and lighter fluid. Drive back. By the time you get there, the fire should already be lit.

Eat dinner, hang around, clean up, explore the campground and take a quick dip in the nearby river, and then go to bed.

Get up heinously late after not sleeping at all, eat breakfast (also cooked over the fire, which takes forever), clean up, drive into town for no reason other than to get juice, then drive back and go for an hour to get to a swimming hole. Eat lunch while you're there. Swim. Wash your hair. Drive back.

Cook dinner. Again, it takes heinously long, firstly because it involves having a fire lit and your friend is overly possessive of the fire, and two, because meat and potatoes take a long time to cook. The food will finally be cooked just as it begins to rain. You tough it out. The rain stops enough to clean up and your friend decides it would be a grand plan to try cooking something else. You do your best to dissuade her but she is a stubborn thing and persists on.

So you explore and talk to people until another camping buddy comes to get you for the monkey bread that is not done. So you sit in the tent and wait and it is still not done. Your cooking friend thinks it will be fine to eat raw. It is not. So it gets thrown away and you play cards until you're all too tired to care about doing anything else so you sleep.

And then you wake up in the morning, pack up, and drive back. Clean the dishes that you used, unpack your bags, let the tent dry out, and sleep because you really didn't get much sleep while you were gone. The ground isn't really comfortable.

And that is how to have a camping trip.

In which I promise I'm not an idiot

I should probably start this off by insisting that I'm usually very responsible. I double-check everything, don't do anything without thinking it through first, and generally don't go off on impulses or do stupid things.

But lately I've been having a giant run of stupid that I can't seem to get out of, generally involving very important things. Like my keys. As most people would agree, keys are important. They are, in fact, vital to getting in and out and around places. And I used to have a spare key to my car at least, but unfortunately, the magnetic box that I had it in fell off of the underside of my car and I never bothered to get a replacement. That was a poor move on my part, but I do have my moments of being young and stupid.

And for some reason, those moments of being stupid seem to be coming more and more often.

Exhibit A:
About three weeks ago I was headed to an interview. I got ready on time, had directions handy, was decent and fed and not nervous one bit. I step out of my house and shut the door behind me, completely ready for this adventure, and dig in my purse for my keys. Only to find that there are no keys in my purse. And then I remember that instead of tossing them back into my purse when coming home last night, I instead left them on my dresser. So I call my interview and inform her that I will be late, and then call my land lady to come and let me in.

Exhibit B: Two weeks ago, I went to the car dealership to get my oil changed. Their procedure involves pulling the car up to the dock, getting out, checking in, signing a thing or two, getting the car mileage, and then waiting. So I pull up, leave my keys in the car because they're going to be needing them soon anyway, and go to check in. But unfortunately, because of habit, I lock the doors before I get out. The very nice car check-in person goes to get a wedge and a long metal stick to unlock the door. I am saved the cost of a locksmith.

Exhibit C: Last week, I stopped after work to get gas. I work late. That means I get off at around 11:30 or so. Nothing is open except this one gas station. I pull up and there's a gas truck there with a burly gas-trucker pumping out gas. I ignore him while keeping an eye on him at the same time and get out to pump my gas. All of that is uneventful. I put in $20 worth of gas, put away the pump, close my gas lid, and turn to get back into my car and drive off. The car door is locked. The keys are in the ignition. I have locked myself out yet again. And, of course, my phone is also in the car, so I can't call anyone. I look around and of course, there is a McDonalds and a Taco Bell that are open, but they are across very dark and menacing parking lots. My best option, at this point, is the trucker.
So I go over to the trucker and ask to use his phone, which is fortunately a smart phone. I can look up locksmiths (which are all closed), a towing agency (which doesn't do locks), and the police station (which is closed). I'm about to call my mom to facebook a friend to text a friend to come get me, when the police answering machine gives me the number for the dispatch. I call the dispatch and they send an officer to come and unlock my car, and until then, John the Trucker offers to stay with me to make sure I'm alright.

Exhibit D: Today, I'm going on a camping trip with three other girls. So I go to run some errands and then when I get back, I decide it would be a good idea to clean out my car. I move to the back seat and pull out things that shouldn't be there, lock my car, and then go to the front door to unlock it. Lo and behold, my keys aren't in my purse. They are, in fact, still in the ignition. Fortunately, just yesterday I went to the hardware store and had copies made of both my house key and my car key. My spare car key is under the car in a magnetic box that hopefully won't fall off.

Moral of the story: Keep spare keys. Truckers named John are friendly. Keep your keys on a zip chain attached to you at all times. Don't invest in things that require locks.