a camping adventure

i have always been a camper. my mom and her husband took me to california when i was just a baby. i went to monterey pop when i was 1. then they dumped me at my greatgrandmother's house, where i lived for the next 15 years.

then i camped with the girl scouts. i was in a troop with a bunch of little snots, whose parents could always afford the best for them. they had everything new and pretty and fun. i had old camping stuff from my grandmother's business. yes, our family was so into camping that my grandmother founded a cahin of camping supply rental stores, which she later sold for a small fortune.

my husband was a camper also. his family would go camping and fishing once a month. we got our son into camping. we even have camped out in the backyard.

but something happened that turned me off camping forever.

we went on vacation before school started. we drove to a friend's home near mobile and spent the night with her. the next day, we packed up our son, her two kids, my friend and their new tent.

when we get to the campgrounds at mobile beach, she realizes she left the directions for the tent at home and she has no idea how to assemble it. my husband and i laid it out and we struggling to get it assembled when the man who was camping on the next campsite came over and helped us. he had the same exact tent that we did! even the same color! he was a great help and very friendly.

my friend and i made dinner while my husband took the kids down to the beach. she had a boy the same age as root and they were already good friends. she also had a little daughter, about 20 months old.

after dinner, we walked on the beach. when it got dark, we put the kids to bed and then we started drinking wine. she drinks a lot more than i do, so while i was just a bit tipsy and warm, she was rolling around i-love-you-guys drunk. finally, we went to bed in the tent and i fell fast asleep.

a few hours later, i woke with a start. i still don't know what woke me up. i discovered  my friend was gone! i figured she went to the bathroom, but she still hadn't returned 10 minutes later.

i woke my husband up and we headed out to find her.  i check the restroom, not there. not on the beach. we were searching the campgrounds, discussing how horrible it would be if she had wandered in the ocean and drowned, when there were a series of blood-curdling screams from the other side of the area, near where we had been sleeping.

we ran over and saw our friend crying and the people from the tent next door- the nice friendly guy who helped us was yelling and his wife was crying hysterically. he was holding her back so she wouldn't fight  my friend.

after all was said and done, it seemed my friend had gone to the bathroom and somehow wandered into their tent instead of ours (because they were identical and she was drunk). she laid down with the couple and fell asleep. then she woke up again and oculdn't find her kids or my son. she thought they had been abducted. she began screaming, woke up the wife, who began screaming at the stranger sleeping between her and her husband, and woke up the husband when she was trying to slug my friend.

yep, she wandered into the wrong tent and slept with strangers.

i went back to sleep.

at 6 a.m. the tent fell in on us. i still think the couple next door sabotaged it after the issue the previous night.

i never went camping again.