If Only They Made Organic Doritos

We’re going camping this weekend for the first time since, I don’t know, 1996 (?), and I’m having more than a few problems.  First of all, I seem to have lost my packing mojo.  This isn’t a big deal if your partner is an anal-retentive, organizational genius (like myself).  It’s a very big deal if he’s not.  I don’t know what my problem is.  Normally I’m writing lists and making piles and having bad dreams about having to pack 20 different suitcases before I catch a plane.  This time, I’m checking my email and watching my husband build a mini-greenhouse for the garden.  It’s not like I’m feeling relaxed about going camping.  We’re completely ill-prepared in the sense that we’re going to have to work our butts off tomorrow to get ready.  And yet that fear, which would normally have me spinning around the house like a whirling dervish of preparatory passion, can’t seem to budge me from the couch. 

Problem number two:  In addition to being with some friends, we’re also camping with a bunch of people we don’t know.  This has led to an absurd amount of hemming and hawing at the grocery store.  Why?  Put it this way.  In the past, when I’ve had parties or visits from out-of-town guests, I’ve actually been wracked with indecision over which crackers to buy:  “Are the cheap ones good enough, or am I just being cheap and should I just suck it up and buy the expensive ones, or am I just buying the expensive ones because they’re expensive even though they don’t actually taste any better but they just look like they do and people think better of you if you get them, in which case, should I even care.”  But now —  now — there’s an even bigger player in town:  organic.  If you’re not buying organic, are you an asshole?  Especially when it comes to feeding your kids?  Or other people’s kids?  And if I show up with a bag of Doritos, will people do the raised eyebrow/sideways glance at each other and gently steer their children away from our campsite, or will they breath a sigh of relief and grab a handful?  And even worse, if we bring disposable plates and cups, is anyone even going to talk to us?  Because I’m thinking I sure as hell wouldn’t if I were them.  

And problem number three, it may be chilly and rainy, and I get cold when it’s 75 degrees.  And then, incidentally, I get hot when it’s 76 degrees.  I’m a wimp.  And a hypocrite.  If my kids start complaining, I’ll be telling them to suck it up, and meanwhile, I’ll be bitching to my husband the entire time.  It didn’t help when Tenzin said he was “pretty sure” the tent was waterproof and we just needed to dig a trench around it for the water to flow into (incidentally, you’d think that this would, again, “inspire” me to start packing like a mad woman, but no).

I think so much of this comes down to, as my friend Verity says, “Becoming who we are, not who we thought we were.”  As much as I want to be a great camper and outdoors woman, maybe I’m just not.  As much as I’d love to help save the environment with every single purchase I make and every single thing I do, sometimes I just can’t.  And as much as I’d like to be that organized (manic), energetic packing machine that can prepare us to meet everything from beaches to blizzards, maybe that’s just not in me this time.

Truth be told, I’m sure this weekend is going to be a blast for the sole reason that we’ll be with our kids and our good friends.  Still, the possibilities remain:  we may get eaten by bugs, have to sleep in the car to keep from freezing to death, or be shunned from the group in some bizarre Lord of the Flies re-enactment.

But that’s just going to have to be okay.