Behind The Scenes

Though it wasn’t a long excursion, Josh and I had a nice time camping.  When we arrived to our site, as soon as we stepped out of Josh’s car we heard the wailing of a toddler at the site across from us.  Sarcastically delighted at the tremendous amount of noise, Josh and I took one hour to set everything up and get settled for the weekend.  We paid very little attention to the ever-wailing toddler, aside from the comments we made to each other about how the parents seemed completely uncaring about their child throwing such a tantrum. 

I thought to myself as I unpacked various things, how it was great that I’d remembered to bring everything right down to the allergy pills, and even remembered to charge every li-ion battery my camera may need for the weekend. I was almost gloating to myself about how this time I seemed to have remembered to bring everything. The first night went really well, we relaxed by the campfire and roasted many marshmallows and a few cheddar cheese sausages, and continued to listen to the Wailing Kid.  We were starting to become slightly irritated with this whining and wailing and spoiled-rotteness of this unseen child across the way.  Now, I like children and so does Josh, but wailing of this kind was absolutely ridiculous.  The kid would whine for 5 minutes and scream “I waaaannnnnnnnn ittttt!” for a total of 20 minutes until she got 1)her turn to ride the trike, 2)to blow the bubbles, 3)to stay up for a campfire, 4)to have a snack, 5)to go for a walk, 6)to have her sister sleep at the same time as her.  By bedtime, which for her was 11pm that friday night, she cried for nearly an hour until she lost her breath, choked and caughed for a few minutes and then got what she wanted: A cookie.  I was so happy when she went to sleep, because it meant peace and quiet for the first time since we’d arrived at the campground.  As I was about to doze off to sleep, she started wailing again.  Finally, I fell asleep and woke up at 7:30 am to more wailing, because she wanted breakfast and her mother wasn’t ready to cook it yet.  Every time the kid would wail and throw a tantrum, the mother never tried to calm her down or tell her to cool it.  She wasn’t even concerned that anyone at other sites could hear every single peep from her campsite, and her childs out of control fits of utter anger and well, spoiledness.

We got up, because sleeping was something that we knew would be unattainable at that point, and had breakfast.  I enjoyed some cereal and tea, and listened to the mp3 cd we made before our trip.  We made our plans for the day, and as we got ready to head to the showers, my previous gloating for remembering to bring everything was squashed to the ground.  I had forgotten to pack two towels, one for me and one for Josh.  Well, that put a wrench in my “Woot woot, I brought everything” chants.  And it didn’t stop there.  Not only did I forget to bring a second towel, but I also forgot to pack myself some underwear.  Well.  Add that to the list of things to shop for in town that day, even though Josh insisted that I did not need to wear any.

Saturday night we sat by the fire, talking about anything and everything.  We were able to do so, because the Wailing Kid was nowhere to be heard.  I think the parents must have brought her to a babysitter so that they could relax their eardrums and go to a friend’s camper for drinks, because we never heard the kid again since that morning.  And we weren’t about to complain.  We decided that since it was giving rain, we’d start packing up what we could, and then on Sunday it took us half an hour to pack up the tent and then head for home.  It was a quick trip, but it was nice all the same.  I would rather listen to the Wailing Kid than sit at the funeral home for 7 hours yesterday, that completely erased any ounce of relaxation we achieved while camping.

I hope we get another chance to go camping this summer, and I hope this time the weather will be nice and sunny and there wont be any cutting the trip short to go attend funeral services.  That’ll put a damper to any situation. That IS the damper!