That's What She Said: What you need to camp
- Dawn Dumont | August 16, 2015
When summer rolls around each year, I feel the pressure to conform to North America’s obsession with sleeping on cold rocks and animal feces (seriously where do you think they go to the bathroom?). My idea of camping – like my ideal idea of camping – is a hotel room with two TV’s, both of them playing HBO. Why two? So that I can watch Game of Thrones and Veep at the same time, duh.
Despite the hardships that sleeping in mosquito territory brings, people like the camping lifestyle. It doesn’t help that marketing makes it look so fun when in reality, camping is cold jaunts across damp grass to the bathroom at four a.m. because the hamburgers weren’t cooked all the way through.
So to express my feelings (as well as a truthful outlook) on the topic of camping, this is what it would look like if I wrote for that bastion of roughing it: the Mountain Equipment Company catalogue.
MEC Hybrid Sleeping Bag
$135.00
Excellent for temperatures up to minus 20 Celsius so would be perfect for that camping trip in Banff with your outdoorsy boyfriend except that you broke up with him before you actually made the trip. (Next time rent equipment before buying, idiot.)
Still the sleeping bag can be used on the bed when you’re too lazy to do the laundry. Sleeping in a sleeping bag is a lot like climbing back inside of the womb particularly when you’re having one of those sad drunks. Warning: Don’t eat in it; crumbs are impossible to get out.
Patagonia Better Sweater Full-zip Hoody
$127.00
Wind resistant, warm and lightweight, you bought it with the intention of becoming one of those winter runner people. The first minus 25 day royally screwed up that plan because no amount of fleece can keep out winter’s cruel claws. After five minutes outside, you were back at your front door, your hands so frozen you could barely get the key in the lock. It took five hours to get back full feeling in your face. Instead, you wear the expensive hoodie while watching illegally downloaded movies on your computer. Cool: The front zip chin guard helps to keep popcorn from falling down your shirt.
Black Diamond Viper Hammer
$199.00
So you decided to learn about ice climbing because you heard that hot guys were into ice climbing and went to buy some climbing equipment except the MEC employees with their rosy cheeks and dockers intimidated you and instead of asking for help, you pretended that you knew what you were doing and that is why you have a Viper Hammer and no idea what the hell it’s for.
Then you decided to learn about climbing by watching 127 Hours and what seemed like a helpful tool now looks like the exact instrument that you will use to cut off your own limbs. (If an experienced climber lost one, you will definitely lose at least two.)
You leave it on your bedside table and use it to scare away (or climb?) any intruders. Can also be used as a nutcracker or hammer in a pinch.
MSR Dragon Fly Stove
$118.00
You don’t like camping; your family likes camping. But you decided to be a good sport and went along. You figured a cute little stove would make up for the fact that you can’t booze it up because everyone is bringing their kids. And drinking around adorable, inquisitive children is a major buzzkill.
S’mores, you thought, will make this whole shitty trip worthwhile. But when you unpacked it, you realized this stove was more complicated than getting a stalker blocked from your cell-phone. You spend two hours trying to figure it out while your nieces and nephews poke you with their melted marshmallows on the end of their sticks. You give up – because honestly, anything to do with propane scares you.
You head to bed. Later that night, it begins to rain and you do not bother to get up to rescue the MSR Dragon Fly Stove, preferring instead to mumble from your sleeping bag, “Suck it stove, it's your fault for being so complicated.”
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