As Labor Day weekend approaches and many folks plan to “celebrate” with one last camping trip of the season, I offer the following essay, written several years ago. I still stand by every crabby word I wrote!

Chronicles of a Crabby Camper

In the cartoon strip “Dilbert,” by Scott Adams, Dilbert says to his dog, “Hey, Dogbert – you want to go camping this weekend?” Dogbert replies (and this shows what a smart talking dog he is!), “Why don’t we just sleep in the garage, eat bugs and not take showers.” Dilbert tries vainly to convince his canine companion. “That is completely different from camping, for reasons which will come to me.” Dogbert deadpans, “Because we might not get lost?”

Dogbert?  My sentiments exactly!

Now, the idea – in principle – of camping and experiencing the wilderness is wonderful. Psalm 9 tells us that “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork. “In Genesis we read that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…and God saw that it was good.” And it is good. How exhilarating it is to stand and gaze across a broad vista of snow-capped purple mountains, the wide valleys sweeping down to meet bubbling streams. How peaceful to watch gentle waves lap the lake’s shoreline, the whispering breeze rustling through the swaying trees.

Yes. And how annoying, those creepy crawlies inching up your leg. And how bothersome, those buzzing winged things circling ‘round your head.

For camping is nothing if it isn’t bugs. Grasshoppers and mosquitoes and beetles and mosquitoes. Gnats and mosquitoes and flies. Mosquitoes and ants…and mosquitoes. God must have been in an extremely creative and expansive mood when he was thinking up the insect kingdom. There are zillions and zillions of these irritating little pests – and they will all be at your campsite. They want your food…and they want your blood.

Camping is also dirt. Sandy dirt, muddy dirt, gritty dirt, greasy dirt. It blows in the air. It squishes under your feet. It permanently attaches itself to your children and all the belongings they’ve managed to drag along with them on this “adventure.”

To remove this dirt, you will traipse to moldy washrooms usually located at least a half mile or more away from your campsite. Once there, you use a toilet that may or may not work and which has seen 50,000 others of the great unwashed use it between possible contacts with the Tydee-Bowl Man. You shower in a stall that is in the midst of hosting the Olympics of Athlete’s Foot Fungus and brush your teeth in a sink so scummy you pray, pray your child manages to hang on to the toothbrush and, oh please, not…drop…it…in…the…scuz. The very best part of all this is that you get to wait in line for the pleasure of this activity. (This is all, of course, assuming there actually are (flushing) toilets, showers that expel at least a dribble of water (preferably warm) and sinks that drain – but that’s another story just too pathetic to tell.)

Back at your campsite, you prepare for a meal. (Notice, girlfriends, that I said you. A camping “vacation” is a primarily a male vacation. It’s been my experience that females get to cook and clean up outdoors just as they do indoors, at home. Only there’s no running water, no electric stove or anything else that even resembles a modern convenience.) You get to fetch your water from a spigot on down the road and lug it back as most of it sloshes out along the way. If you are really fortunate, you have a propane camp stove with two whole burners, one of which might even light. If it’s not too blustery it’s possible you might manage to heat up your delicious beans and franks just before the thunder and lightning begins and the torrential downpour drenches everything in sight.

Of course, all that water does serve a purpose. It helps wash off the hundreds of multicolored glops from your picnic table – which looks as if every North American avian has claimed it for its very own potty.

As a child, my parents thought that tent camping would provide some inexpensive family togetherness. What it actually provided was expensive family wetness. One morning we woke up floating in rain-soaked sleeping bags, along with sopping wet everything else, and promptly purchased an off-the-ground pop-up camper.

The tent lesson of my youth must have been lost on me when, years later, my supposedly loving husband talked me into acquiring a tent of our very own – when I was 7 ½ months pregnant. Ahh, that first tent-owning July weekend: fly-swatting, profuse sweating, chasing after a four year old, changing the diapers of a 1 ½ year old and trying vainly to find a not-rocky spot to rest my weary, frazzled head, along with my very expectant belly.

Years later, while on “vacation” in still another, albeit larger, canvas home-away-from-home (I guess I am not a quick learner), sleeping with my family proved to be a complete exercise in futility – for me. They all dozed along just fine, and most of the time on top of me. Their snoring caused our campsite to be declared a noise pollution hazard zone. Then, the air in the pillow portion of my air mattress escaped (and, mind you, I certainly do not blame it for doing so) and I awoke in the early dawn of the damp cold unable to stand erect, complete with a stiff neck that was to last for two solid weeks. A happy camper I was not. To this day I have a sideways memory of Yosemite National Park.

No, I believe the only true “happy campers” were Adam and Eve, and that was before the Fall. Look what happened after that: Those pesky Egyptians shooed the Israelites away from their dandy campsite beside the sea, after which all they did was cry, cry, cry in the wilderness. Elijah’s outdoor experience was no great shakes, either. On Queen Jezebel’s #1 most wanted list, he arrived at his chosen spot under a lovely juniper tree and promptly asked God to just let him die. There was also that great camper John the Baptist, him with his clothes of camel hair, leather girdles and locust and wild honey diet. How many times do you suppose he was stung while trying to evade those wild bees?

So, I must say that though I do cherish the nature that God created, I just basically want it in its place and me in mine. And, as a general rule, its place belongs outside and me not tent camping in it. Getting “back to nature” is fine, but when we’re done would you please get me back to the Hampton Inn?