Before You Start Something New Jitters

Some would call it "undiagnosed stupidness". Congo natives have a phrase, "ee' gokra Seh 'ee", which is roughly translated as "glistening hand pads". As the zero hour of September 5th approaches, although I may not be less of a man, I may be less of a person as I am sure that my brain will explode at the Crack of Its Dawn.

After attending a rural wedding last weekend, Julia and I planned to stay overnight at the Family Enrichment Camp's campground, just a stone's throw from where the ceremony was held. However, we did not plan for its unintentionally horror-themed property. With the slanted abandoned shacks with torn screen doors housing tipped garbage cans and litter, black scum smeared wasp traps, random blocks of concrete and squares of carpet, accompanied by the clammy humidity, overcast skies, gusting wind, and choppy opaque-green lake we knew we were hunkering down for an interesting time. Although the creepy campground, creepy weather, and creepy incoherent babbling from a girl in a white gown suggested that we would be haunted by the creepy sort, we were surprised when our Anecdote came in the form of a regular looking fellow walking towards us as we finished setting up our tent. Gripping a small handful of kindling, this late-twenties Guy asked us if we would like to have s'mores with him and his wife (she was putting the baby to sleep, they were in a cabin across the virtually empty campground)...in our fire pit. Our fire pit? Yes. He was inviting us for s'mores at our fire pit. Not the unclaimed fire pit thirty odd feet away, but the one accenting our picnic table and tent . Julia and I glanced at each other to decide how to decline this man's offer. We were not in the friend-making mood. But after a stranger starts making a fire in your fire pit, it feels strange to say, "Hey! Cut that out!" Eventually, I mumbled something about going for a walk to check out the sunset, grabbed Julia's hand, and essentially ran away. After about a half hour of sitting at the creepy beach we decided to walk back to our creepy campsite to see if our snub deterred Guy from actually infiltrating a stranger's fire pit. Of course, to our dismay, we found the opposite true as the fire was roaring, he was setting up snacks on our table, and his wife, Girl, sat cozily in a folding chair wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire. At least they were using their own chairs. We were already somewhat angry (maybe peeved is a better word) as we approached and Girl's comment, "Welcome to your campsite!", did not help. So Julia whipped out the big guns and replied, "Boy, you're just moving in aren't you?" Boom! No response. "Don't you have a fire at your own site?" Kapow! I had to squint from the heat of Julia's fury. So Girl replied that they had used this fire pit the previous day. Hmmmm. I mentioned that it was weird that there was a fire pit just next door that was not being used. Hmmmm. So Julia began making our bed in the tent and I started puttering around in our car pretending to sort things, but was really shell shocked by the tenacity of these strange people. It was sometime during my is-this-real? pinch that I saw them grab their belongings and scurry away into the darkness. How odd. Somewhere during Guy and Girl's lives they missed the class on "Etiquette, Common Sense, and Run Away from Strangers Don't Go and Build a Fire in Their Campsite". Sure we could have accepted their offer. But Julia and I have come to a point in our lives that we no longer take chocolate from strangers. Maybe you still do. Sure we could have had been more polite about them taking over our rented site, but consider someone knocking on your front door and inviting you for supper at your house, a supper you are not necessarily very fond of, and then this person goes and starts using your stove. Maybe you like that kind of thing. And then again, maybe you are some sort of weird freak.

I am not sure what is more odd. Them: slowly driving by (going against the one-way nonetheless) while giving us the stare down. Or us: Julia diving into the tent and me pretending to stir pancake mix to avoid eye contact during said drive-by. Later, when we snooped the next day, we found an unused fire pit in front of their cabin...a cabin which burned down thirteen years ago. Just jokes. But we DID find an unused fire pit.

I bought a toothbrush the other day to replace my curled and deteriorated one which I am sure is older than the three month dentist's recommendation. Unfortunately, the new one featured extremely wide bristles. So much so that they spanned the edges of the top and bottom gums of my mouth, like the choreographed fingers of a concert pianist splayed to reach the farthest of octaves. Now I am not sure if I bought a giant toothbrush for dogs, or somehow wandered into the novelty section of Superstore's pharmacy department. Currently it sits, abandoned, in a cup, beside its Abel of a brother which I bought the next day.