An old friend text messaged and emailed yesterday. He is quite thorough. He now lives down in Arkansas working for what I like to refer to as Satan the Devil, you may know it better as Wal-Mart Corporate Headquarters. He used to live here in Stinkin Lincoln, in fact grew up here. His name is Josh and he is a subscriber to this blog and has the same sentiment for Stinkin Lincoln as I do, but for different reasons. His sister just had her first baby and he came back to get a look at the little rascal. While he is here he is going to go camping with Vanessa, me and some friends of ours. We are old camping buddies, so thinking about going camping with him conjured up some old memories.
One autumn a group of us went to Waubonsie State Park. It's was a chilly evening and we were gathered around the camp fire roasting marshmallows and talking. I can't remember what Josh said exactly but it was something in regards to my short, not-so-slim physique. At that exact moment, I just so happened to have a perfectly roasted, gooey marshmallow on the end of the stick in my hand. With one quick flick of the wrist the molten marshmallow was sent hurtling through the air towards Josh. It was one of those slow motion moments, where you can see Josh's smug look turn into terror as the marshmallow is headed for him. As it reaches Josh, it hits him square in his, how shall I put this... , zipper of his shorts. The gang around the campfire burst into laughter, that is everyone but Josh. You see, Josh is a die hard camper. When he goes, he views it as a challenge, he wants to actually rough it. How this pertains to the story is that part of Josh's roughing it means no change of clothes. Here he is with a liquefied marshmallow on his only pair of shorts. What to do? On this cool evening, he decides he must get the sticky mess off of his shorts. So, he goes off and takes a jug of water and washes off the goo, not even bothering to remove the shorts, none the less. He returns to the campfire looking as if he peed his pants. Laughter erupts once again. It's times like these that make me look forward to getting out of Stinkin Lincoln for a couple days, and enjoy the simple things in life. Truth be told, I would look forward to getting out of Omaha to do the very same thing. Ah yes, give me the simple life.
He is going to be appalled at how I camp:) i bring so much crap! Although I am perfectly capable of roughing it, I just choose not to anymore. I view the challenge being just how much food we can bring and still have room for the kids. Believe me, you do not want to run out of snacks when bringing kids! They are hungry every 10 minutes. So, is this Josh a ramen and granola bar camper??? It's ok, i'll share my steak and eggs and pancakes and sausage and poptarts and potatoes and orange juice and coffee......... if he's nice.
ReplyDeleteok, i was laughing the whole time reading this lol. such a supreme marshmellow marksmen brandon is! i definitely remember thinking "holy crap! i can't believe there's a FLAME on my zipper!". and then came the thought "how in the world am i going to put this out!". alas, it all worked out i suppose...and i was humbled to not call brandon festively plump ever again :p. i'm defiantly looking forward to hanging out with you guys this weekend and sitting around a campfire. i went last weekend down in arkansas, only to have our campsite flooded at 1:30 AM and being evacuated. to field julie's question. i'm most certainly a granola bar camper, along with soups and burritos. i'm not usually the type to bring a huge meal and spend the time to prepare it, but if everyone else is then i'll get on board and pitch in. steak and eggs and pancakes, sausage...and poptarts? uh-yes i'm most certainly nice!
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