A Few Brilliant Ideas...

Ick. Wet.

I think most people agree when I say that having wet socks is one of the most nasty feelings that could will ever experience.

This weekend I went on a "Fight Camping Trip" to WC where I was informed we would camp outside in the backyard. In case you don't know, Fight is a book study that some college guys from our church do for we, the younger gentleman. In other words, when the messaged finished at 12:30, we played poker till 3:00 AM.

Well, when I heard "camping" trip. I determined camping would be involved... Then it rained.

Call me an idiot, but hey... I'd come here to camp and that's what I planned to do, so I grabbed my sleeping bag and pillow and made my way out through the drizzling rain to the tent. Rain. Tent. I should be okay... I thought, making my way through the rain to the tent.

It took me a good two minutes to figure out how to open the tent, and when I finally did I heard growling from inside. One of them was growling at me, which I assumed to be jokingly, and we had a coherent conversation. Apparently, he was sleep talking. He can't remember the conversation.

I should have been more frightened.

There was enough room in the tent for my large form, which is something that isn't always true when camping. It appears the rain scared a lot of them away, wimps. That left me and a bunch of soon-to-be-freshman (similar to he-who-shall-not-be-named). I spent a little while wriggling around trying to find a comfortable position. As I reached my feet out across the tent, I felt the edge of my sleeping bag turn cold and wet. "Wuh-oh" I muttered and curled inward. The issue was I knew that now I couldn't lay completely stretched out... I needed to. I spent the next hour or so tossing around, while attempting to remain quiet for my fellow rough-it-sleepers. Eventually I drifted off to sleep somewhere between 3:30 and 5:00 AM. I awoke again at 6:00 AM, in what seemed like seconds, to the rising of the sun and the chirping of the birds. I quickly lamented my lack of sleep then attempted to go back to sleep till about 7:00, at which point I gave up and just went and sat in a chair. Why? I was soaked from shoulder to toe. The tent had slowly pooled with water throughout the night, leaving my sleeping bag sopping wet. I never knew how nasty a wet sleeping bag felt until I woke up covered by it.

Back to the wet sock bit. Wet socks are nasty. Awful. Terrible. Well what I discovered through this experience is that a sleeping bag is just like a giant sock. This is not a metaphor. This is reality. This is unghhhhhhh. If you know that terrible wet sock feeling, perhaps you can sympathize.

This is the last time I camp in the rain. I've done my time.