Camping

Not long ago, I was reminiscing about the past. As a teenager I was a Skater/Punk. I hung out with other skateboarders, listened to punk music and "sang" in a punk band called Kaptain Kommunist. It was an epic adolescence. I grew up in a small town and for a long time, my only means of transportation was my skateboard. I would ride it across town everyday to go to work at Dairy Queen. 


With this reminiscence came a longing to ride my skateboard. I still have one and I probably always will, although it spends its time in a closet gathering dust these days. And so, not too long ago I pulled the skateboard out and used it as a means of transportation.

You know what? It sucked. In fact, it was the worst thing ever.

I'm not sure why I thought of this today, but the why is not important. The fact of the matter is that I thought about it today and it somehow brought my mind on a journey which mysteriously ended at the subject of camping.

I thought to myself, "Why do people like camping? Also, when did people start camping? There was a time when camping was just living. Your house was a tent and you lived there. Occasionally shit would get real and you'd be forced to back up your tent and whatever else you owned and find a new home.

Then, one day a smart guy decided he hated living in tents and he sat down and thought up a solution. And shortly thereafter the first house was constructed. I'm sure there were naysayers, as there always are, but before you could sing Alice's Restaurant everyone on the block have built themselves a house and the invention spread from there.

About ten years later a guy named Joe Campton reminisced, much like I did recently, about living in a tent. "Moving was so much easier back then" he thought. "I didn't like the Jones' and how they would show off their fancy camel, so I took down my tent and moved it over by the McCormick's. But now I have these walls and it's so hard to build a new house."

What do you think old Joe did? That's right, he took his tent out of the storage closet and carried it out of town on the back of his practical camel. When he found a nice place by a stream and a tree, he set up his tent, rolled out his sleeping bag, and started cooking over a fire.

Guess what? That's right, it sucked!

That night Joe remembered that sleeping in a tent is basically just living in a sheet. It's cold, there are bugs, and also you don't have a house! The next morning Joe packed up his tent and went home. He was embarrassed that he'd been so foolish though, so when people asked him about his night in the tent, he lied.

"It was the best!" he said enthusiastically. "You can go out there and forget about everything at home. You feel like you're one with nature! It's the best thing ever!"

People are generally gullible and so they believed him and before you knew it, everyone was doing the same thing Joe Campton did. They went "Camping". They all hated it too, but because they thought they were supposed to like it, no one ever said anything. People are also very scared of being wrong, so they made themselves believe they were having fun feeling at one with nature.

And so, from then until now people go camping. They go out in the wilderness, live in a sheet propped up by sticks with all the bugs and the cold wind and just like Joe Campton, they call it fun, and say they enjoy the feeling of being one with nature. They are all liars!