LJ Idol Week 17 - The Funniest Thing
o/` "Me an' RJ an' the kids was on a camp-out in the mountains, and we had us one'a them U-Drive-'Em Army Jeep cars which we rented from a fella by the name of Kubozke for thirty bucks a day, buy your gas along the way, take a rabbit's foot and leave a pint of blood for a dee-posit.
"And he 'splained it all to us how we was supposed to get to Telluride, which is fifty miles away by way of the regular highway, however, there was a shortcut but unless we had drove the Black Bear Road before, we'd better be off to stay, stay in bed and sleep late."
------ "Black Bear Road" performed by CW McCall
I was fourteen years old the summer our seven months' pregnant Girl Scout leader went completely insane and decided to take us on a weekend wilderness trip. Several of us would be going to a survival camp up in Wyoming later and it had as one of its pre-requisites completion of the hiking badge. To earn the hiking badge, you had to complete ninety-two miles' worth of trails. It seemed perfectly logical at the time to accomplish this, with time running short, by transporting us to Arches National Monument and allowing us to explore the trails. Surely a dozen teens could cover at least ninety-two miles in a weekend; what could possibly go wrong?
For a while it looked as though this brilliant endeavor would die before it could ever be executed. Since Sharon was so pregnant, the regional office wasn't willing to let her undertake the trip alone. Not one mother was crazy enough to volunteer supervising a bunch of teen aged girls crammed for six hours into a green utility van and then herding them while they hiked all over creation.
Except for my mother.
She considered it a great opportunity for maternal bonding.
I was less than thrilled about this prospect because it also meant my little sister would be tagging along. I knew my mother would expect me to look out for her and I just wanted to hang out with my friends and enjoy the scenery. In fact, I doubted I'd even be able to complete the hiking badge since I expected I'd have to spend the weekend waiting for a tired, whiny eight year old to catch up.
Friday after school we all gathered at Sharon's house, helped load the van, and then began the trip out into the wild badlands of Utah. If my mother had envisioned this as an idyllic girls' outing, she was in for a sore disappointment. My friend Becky and I took seats in the rear of the van, as far away as possible from the adults, and promptly buried our noses in books. Any attempts at conversation were met by twin pairs of raised eyebrows and irritated glares delivered over the top of the books. Another friend, Robin, sat in front of us with her headphones jammed into her ears listening with her Sony Walkman to something which sounded vaguely like cats screaming. Donna, a blond who was probably singlehandedly responsible for the "dumb" stereotype, chewed an obnoxiously huge wad of pink bubble gum and filled what would have been an awkward silence with inane chat about boys. The rest were busy cooing and coddling over my little sister, who would periodically pop her head up to stick out her tongue and thumb her nose at me.
As we began to traverse the mountain desert between Grand Junction, Colorado (which was the last bastion of civilization between there and Moab, Utah) and the national park the air conditioning failed. Sharon instructed us to open the windows, which didn't help at all because the air outside was even hotter than what was inside the van. After four hours the van began to emit a strong odor of overcooked girl, nervous adult, and radiator fluid. We rolled into a rest area just as the van gave a shuddering cough and stopped running altogether.
Sharon had some experience working on cars so she and my mother popped the van's hood and tried to get it running again while the rest of us went exploring. At the top of a sidewalk which wound up a hill through tall slabs of blood red sandstone we found a pair of air conditioned rest rooms...and a pay phone. While Donna amused herself poking her finger in and out of the coin slot and the other girls hid out in the rest room, Becky and hiked back down to the parking lot so we could tell the adults about the pay phone. Neither had been able to fix the van, it was getting dark, and they were getting desperate. Unfortunately for us, the pay phone proved useless. Donna had stuck her wad of bubble gum in both the coin return and the coin slot.
Sharon burst into tears. My mother looked like she was contemplating multiple murders. It occurred to me that the desert was the perfect place to stash the bodies and I resolved to stay as far away from the adults as possible. We were saved from possible execution by passing tourists who promised to carry a message into Moab and send a repairman back for us. Within the hour a tow truck containing a tall, muscular blond Mormon man arrived. Fixing the van turned out to be relatively simple but it took a while because every so often Sharon or my mother would have to divest the poor man of a hormonal teen or two.
By the time we were once more on our way, it was too late to head into the park. Sharon booked us into the local KOA, which didn't allow cook fires as it was primarily intended for RVs, and then took us to get hamburgers at the local A&W drive-in. While the adults stayed up worrying that an RV coming in late would park on us and kill us all, we girls stayed up telling ghost stories and pretending that the ketchup on our French fries was blood.
We got up early the next morning and spent an entire day traversing the trails of Arches National Monument. We did, indeed, hike at least ninety-two miles and no one got killed. When it came time to bunk for the night, however, we were again confronted with lack of availability. They'd lost our reservation and the campground was full. My mother growled that someone must have invited Murphy on this trip. Donna looked around to see what guy my mother was talking about and then pouted when she didn't find one. The park ranger assured us, however, that there were plenty of good campgrounds along the river and we should be able to camp for the night there.
The road the park ranger indicated wound alongside the Green River. We were surrounded by steep, narrow canyon walls on one side and a sharp drop to the river on the other. No campground, no evidence of a campsite. We girls resumed the ghost stories and talked about the possibility of bodies floating in the river. As it got darker, visions of ketchup covered ghouls danced through our young imaginations. No one wanted to get out when Sharon found a large flat grassy area beside the river and declared that it would just have to do for a place to camp.
No lights. No fire ring. No facilities. None of us were pleased with the arrangements. When Sharon explained to us what had to be done with bodily wastes, I silently vowed never to poop again until we were back in civilization. Somehow we got a fire started and managed to cook a meal without poisoning ourselves. When it was time to go to bed, Donna and my little sister refused to leave the van. Both claimed that if they did so, the corpses from the river would rise up from their watery graves and bite their heads off. I gazed uneasily at the dark, choppy surface of the water and contemplated the possible truth of their statements but an elbow in the ribs from Becky brought me to my senses.
We set up our pup tents --- those of us who felt we could fend off the potential invasion by waterlogged zombies --- and went to sleep.
Around midnight, I just couldn't hold it any more and I had to go. Grabbing my roll of toilet paper and trusty little trowel, I trotted off into the bushes to do my business...and promptly fell into the ice cold river. I clawed my way back up the embankment, certain my shriek had awakened both the dead and anyone within a three or four state radius but everyone was still asleep. I stripped off my wet clothes, since I'd need to change before getting back into my sleeping bag, finished my business, and then filled in the trench.
A tiny speck of white off to my right caught my attention. Thinking I'd missed a piece of toilet paper, I grabbed it and flung it off over the embankment. It soared about fifteen feet in the air and then dangled majestically from the branches like some sort of flag...an awfully big flag. When I pawed through my clothes, I realized the horrible truth: it was my underwear I'd flung into that tree. I slunk back to my pup tent, woke up Becky, and told her what I'd done. She stared at me for a moment and then started laughing hysterically. After a few minutes she regained enough control to decide maybe we'd better tell the adults about this before they woke up and wondered what the hell had happened.
Trying to wake Sharon was absolutely useless; the poor thing was dead to the world. We did get my mother up --- or she'd been waiting for one of us to do something this stupid --- and after she'd had a good laugh at my expense she dutifully rose and went in search of something, anything with which to snag the offending pair of underdrawers and get them out of that tree. None of the branches we found were quite long enough. Reluctantly my mother suggested they'd just have to be left there and kindly told me no one would notice.
The world looks different in the light of day. It turns out we weren't as isolated as we thought we were. A band of rafters greeted us, laughing and pointing as they floated by. I came out of the tent, looked around, and groaned at the utter irony of it all. If we had driven a mere twenty-five feet further, we would have found the campground. The place we'd pulled into was the place where they customarily launched their river rafting tours. Above our heads, waving gaily in the breeze and visible to any and all who passed by ether on the river or the road, were my size fourteen underpants.
I wanted to die.
Sharon couldn't get them out of the tree either and there they had to stay. For all I know, they're still there greeting rafters who float by on the Green River.
We never went on another wilderness trip in Girl Scouts again.
Please also take a look at my partner laurelian's entry Where Love Cannot Abide. These were written for therealljidol. When voting opens Friday, March 7 at 1 PM EST, please cast your votes for us if you liked them. Also, take a look at chite and her partner and boundfate and hers. These gals can really write and deserve some recognition for their efforts.
"And he 'splained it all to us how we was supposed to get to Telluride, which is fifty miles away by way of the regular highway, however, there was a shortcut but unless we had drove the Black Bear Road before, we'd better be off to stay, stay in bed and sleep late."
------ "Black Bear Road" performed by CW McCall
I was fourteen years old the summer our seven months' pregnant Girl Scout leader went completely insane and decided to take us on a weekend wilderness trip. Several of us would be going to a survival camp up in Wyoming later and it had as one of its pre-requisites completion of the hiking badge. To earn the hiking badge, you had to complete ninety-two miles' worth of trails. It seemed perfectly logical at the time to accomplish this, with time running short, by transporting us to Arches National Monument and allowing us to explore the trails. Surely a dozen teens could cover at least ninety-two miles in a weekend; what could possibly go wrong?
For a while it looked as though this brilliant endeavor would die before it could ever be executed. Since Sharon was so pregnant, the regional office wasn't willing to let her undertake the trip alone. Not one mother was crazy enough to volunteer supervising a bunch of teen aged girls crammed for six hours into a green utility van and then herding them while they hiked all over creation.
Except for my mother.
She considered it a great opportunity for maternal bonding.
I was less than thrilled about this prospect because it also meant my little sister would be tagging along. I knew my mother would expect me to look out for her and I just wanted to hang out with my friends and enjoy the scenery. In fact, I doubted I'd even be able to complete the hiking badge since I expected I'd have to spend the weekend waiting for a tired, whiny eight year old to catch up.
Friday after school we all gathered at Sharon's house, helped load the van, and then began the trip out into the wild badlands of Utah. If my mother had envisioned this as an idyllic girls' outing, she was in for a sore disappointment. My friend Becky and I took seats in the rear of the van, as far away as possible from the adults, and promptly buried our noses in books. Any attempts at conversation were met by twin pairs of raised eyebrows and irritated glares delivered over the top of the books. Another friend, Robin, sat in front of us with her headphones jammed into her ears listening with her Sony Walkman to something which sounded vaguely like cats screaming. Donna, a blond who was probably singlehandedly responsible for the "dumb" stereotype, chewed an obnoxiously huge wad of pink bubble gum and filled what would have been an awkward silence with inane chat about boys. The rest were busy cooing and coddling over my little sister, who would periodically pop her head up to stick out her tongue and thumb her nose at me.
As we began to traverse the mountain desert between Grand Junction, Colorado (which was the last bastion of civilization between there and Moab, Utah) and the national park the air conditioning failed. Sharon instructed us to open the windows, which didn't help at all because the air outside was even hotter than what was inside the van. After four hours the van began to emit a strong odor of overcooked girl, nervous adult, and radiator fluid. We rolled into a rest area just as the van gave a shuddering cough and stopped running altogether.
Sharon had some experience working on cars so she and my mother popped the van's hood and tried to get it running again while the rest of us went exploring. At the top of a sidewalk which wound up a hill through tall slabs of blood red sandstone we found a pair of air conditioned rest rooms...and a pay phone. While Donna amused herself poking her finger in and out of the coin slot and the other girls hid out in the rest room, Becky and hiked back down to the parking lot so we could tell the adults about the pay phone. Neither had been able to fix the van, it was getting dark, and they were getting desperate. Unfortunately for us, the pay phone proved useless. Donna had stuck her wad of bubble gum in both the coin return and the coin slot.
Sharon burst into tears. My mother looked like she was contemplating multiple murders. It occurred to me that the desert was the perfect place to stash the bodies and I resolved to stay as far away from the adults as possible. We were saved from possible execution by passing tourists who promised to carry a message into Moab and send a repairman back for us. Within the hour a tow truck containing a tall, muscular blond Mormon man arrived. Fixing the van turned out to be relatively simple but it took a while because every so often Sharon or my mother would have to divest the poor man of a hormonal teen or two.
By the time we were once more on our way, it was too late to head into the park. Sharon booked us into the local KOA, which didn't allow cook fires as it was primarily intended for RVs, and then took us to get hamburgers at the local A&W drive-in. While the adults stayed up worrying that an RV coming in late would park on us and kill us all, we girls stayed up telling ghost stories and pretending that the ketchup on our French fries was blood.
We got up early the next morning and spent an entire day traversing the trails of Arches National Monument. We did, indeed, hike at least ninety-two miles and no one got killed. When it came time to bunk for the night, however, we were again confronted with lack of availability. They'd lost our reservation and the campground was full. My mother growled that someone must have invited Murphy on this trip. Donna looked around to see what guy my mother was talking about and then pouted when she didn't find one. The park ranger assured us, however, that there were plenty of good campgrounds along the river and we should be able to camp for the night there.
The road the park ranger indicated wound alongside the Green River. We were surrounded by steep, narrow canyon walls on one side and a sharp drop to the river on the other. No campground, no evidence of a campsite. We girls resumed the ghost stories and talked about the possibility of bodies floating in the river. As it got darker, visions of ketchup covered ghouls danced through our young imaginations. No one wanted to get out when Sharon found a large flat grassy area beside the river and declared that it would just have to do for a place to camp.
No lights. No fire ring. No facilities. None of us were pleased with the arrangements. When Sharon explained to us what had to be done with bodily wastes, I silently vowed never to poop again until we were back in civilization. Somehow we got a fire started and managed to cook a meal without poisoning ourselves. When it was time to go to bed, Donna and my little sister refused to leave the van. Both claimed that if they did so, the corpses from the river would rise up from their watery graves and bite their heads off. I gazed uneasily at the dark, choppy surface of the water and contemplated the possible truth of their statements but an elbow in the ribs from Becky brought me to my senses.
We set up our pup tents --- those of us who felt we could fend off the potential invasion by waterlogged zombies --- and went to sleep.
Around midnight, I just couldn't hold it any more and I had to go. Grabbing my roll of toilet paper and trusty little trowel, I trotted off into the bushes to do my business...and promptly fell into the ice cold river. I clawed my way back up the embankment, certain my shriek had awakened both the dead and anyone within a three or four state radius but everyone was still asleep. I stripped off my wet clothes, since I'd need to change before getting back into my sleeping bag, finished my business, and then filled in the trench.
A tiny speck of white off to my right caught my attention. Thinking I'd missed a piece of toilet paper, I grabbed it and flung it off over the embankment. It soared about fifteen feet in the air and then dangled majestically from the branches like some sort of flag...an awfully big flag. When I pawed through my clothes, I realized the horrible truth: it was my underwear I'd flung into that tree. I slunk back to my pup tent, woke up Becky, and told her what I'd done. She stared at me for a moment and then started laughing hysterically. After a few minutes she regained enough control to decide maybe we'd better tell the adults about this before they woke up and wondered what the hell had happened.
Trying to wake Sharon was absolutely useless; the poor thing was dead to the world. We did get my mother up --- or she'd been waiting for one of us to do something this stupid --- and after she'd had a good laugh at my expense she dutifully rose and went in search of something, anything with which to snag the offending pair of underdrawers and get them out of that tree. None of the branches we found were quite long enough. Reluctantly my mother suggested they'd just have to be left there and kindly told me no one would notice.
The world looks different in the light of day. It turns out we weren't as isolated as we thought we were. A band of rafters greeted us, laughing and pointing as they floated by. I came out of the tent, looked around, and groaned at the utter irony of it all. If we had driven a mere twenty-five feet further, we would have found the campground. The place we'd pulled into was the place where they customarily launched their river rafting tours. Above our heads, waving gaily in the breeze and visible to any and all who passed by ether on the river or the road, were my size fourteen underpants.
I wanted to die.
Sharon couldn't get them out of the tree either and there they had to stay. For all I know, they're still there greeting rafters who float by on the Green River.
We never went on another wilderness trip in Girl Scouts again.
Please also take a look at my partner laurelian's entry Where Love Cannot Abide. These were written for therealljidol. When voting opens Friday, March 7 at 1 PM EST, please cast your votes for us if you liked them. Also, take a look at chite and her partner and boundfate and hers. These gals can really write and deserve some recognition for their efforts.