Inconveniently Erected

So a few months back I let myself be suggested into the notion of camping. I've camped. I grew up camping. We considered it a form of ritual abuse. In the 70's, our parents would make us sit on the beer in the back seat and keep one hand on the styrofoam cooler's top to stop its annoying squeaking as we barreled down back roads to a poor man's Nirvana.

"Take that hand off that cooler and you'll go through life as the only one-handed fiddle player in the history of Johnson County," my dad would say. I despised him as much for his inability to distinguish the violin I played from a fiddle nearly as much as I despised him for his cruelty. He would blow long streams of smoke from a Lucky Strike that served to get the rest of us just high enough to endure the ride.

We would tell each other stories about snakes and legendary carnivores that lived beneath the murky depths of Pomona Lake. Then we'd slip on our only pair of tennis shoes for what might well be our last wade ever. I think I saw one snake in all those years. We also saw a camper explode spectacularly when its propane tank issued the ultimate camping complaint. My mother pronounced this as evidence that God had never meant for people to camp with all the comforts of home.

"That's what staying home is for," she offered, blowing a long stream of smoke from a Kool Extra Long.

We dodged wasps in the nude in the communal showers that, to this day, seem like a spectacularly bad idea. We learned to survive on nothing more than ash-coated hotdogs, blackened hamburger and marshmallows stuck on sticks that harbored God-Knows-What fungus. Small wonder we all have cancer now.

Over the last 25 years, I have had the occasional urge to camp. I would get right on the cusp of my anticipated departure and realize that life without Central Air was not my chosen path. I have hair that is almost too short to brush, yet I go nowhere without a blow drier - just in case. I enjoy smelling like my deodorant. The plus side never outweighed the con side when I'd completed the analysis, so I never went. Tomorrow, however, I am going camping.

I had thought to dip my toe in the proverbial waters by renting space in a cabin at the campground. Yesterday, I was possessed by something dark and ugly and walked out of our General Store with a tent and a sleeping bag. I was so excited with my purchase that when I got home, I immediately unpacked the tent and made sure I had all the tools necessary - mentally - to assemble it. It would not do to be seen fumbling in public with my only means of shelter. I once made a complete fool of myself at Joe's Crab Shack with a pair of those nutcracker lobster jobbers. Since then, I practice everything that I can foresee happening before I get out among the general public.

I applauded myself aloud when I had erected the small 2-person tent in the living room of my bungalow. I had unwittingly walled myself off from the kitchen, however. It would take going outside, around the house, and back in through the garage just to have a sandwich until I took it down. I tiptoed around my triumph and called down the block to announce my new-found aptitude.

"I bought a tent!"

"Why did you buy a tent?"

"For the campout. And I put it together!"

"I thought you were staying in a cabin because you were 'born in the Western Hemisphere and felt entitled to walls'. Where is this tent?"

"In the living room."

"You have a tent in the living room?"

"I didn't want the neighbors to be witnesses for the next 18 years of this mortgage that I had tried and failed to erect a tent in my yard."

"People don't talk about those things," said my beloved sibling.

"I would," I said.

I checked and double-checked the list of things to bring to the camp and made trip after trip to the General Store to stock up. My Ford Escort began to groan either from the added weight or the sheer embarrassment. I'm not sure which. It hadn't occurred to me that a bright pink Escort might feel inferior among the cabal of camping vehicles we would encounter. I imagined if I were a Pink Escort that I would presume a life heavy on the Marriotts and light on the camping. Late in both our lives, we were going to bite the bullet.

My friend David called today while we were bundling kindling for the fire at camp. I had mentioned to him once before that I'd be gone for five days in the great outdoors. I've been trying to get him to read more so I wouldn't be friends with the only illiterate in New York City. To encourage him, I told him I'd be reading "Naked" (by David Sedaris) while away. I did not mean to tip my hand that I would be reading naked.

"You're camping naked?" he shrieked.

"Nude, I think they call it," I mumbled.

"I thought you meant you were reading a BOOK titled NAKED!"

"Well, I am. I'm reading Naked....naked."

"Oh darling, really! So this is about sex," he hissed a little too proudly.

David doesn't go to the grocery store unless it coincides with his libido's cycle. I firmly believe that when his sex drive leaves him entirely, he will be found starved to death on his kitchen floor. I believe David to be the sort who would sign up for group therapy just to meet men. He is dedicated where I am resigned.

"It's a little about sex, " I muttered. I am very comfortable with my sexuality and still fairly confident in my over-40 body. Nudity does not bother me. I think sex is one of the greater occupations we can undertake as humans. I just don't like talking about it with anyone other than the person (or persons - don't judge) with whom I'm having it.

"I didn't know it was a SEX CAMPING TRIP," he bubbled. I swore on my dog's life that if he said "You Go Girl!", I was hanging up and returning the tent.

"It's NOT a sex camping trip. But if sex happens...," I trailed off, hoping to end the subject on a muted, though hopeful note. I knew this was not the time to tell him that I'd bought the bright red pony-tail butt plug to wear to the Leather And Levi Cocktail Party with my black leather chaps, armband, boots and cock ring. It took me three days to explain to myself that I'd be dressing up at the All-Boy Naked Camp Out for a cocktail party. I knew I couldn't explain it to David with Candice Bergen counting in the background, "One minute...two minutes....".

The cock ring was a tip from one of The Boys. When I looked askance at the suggestion, they noted that, in their experience, they can be handy in avoiding unexpected displays of genital exuberance. I made a mental note of it on the spot and when I came home from dinner, made an actual note of it. It was the first item in the bag when I started packing.

I leave tomorrow with high hopes that the tent in the living room is the only inconvenient erection I'll have to report.