That
night my 'zing was free. We had kept the fire going as long as
possible and I had an idea to help out with the water and put the
cooler near the fire which I forgot about and melted the nozzle off
of and poured all of the water out on the ground. Which is not how I
wanted that to end up. The guy who was spending his weekend freezing
in the cold with some hell raising boys got his cooler melted in the
bargin and was not overly pleased with it and told me so until it
looked like I was about to cry and he let me off. When the fire had
died we all went to bed where I was soon convinced I was going to
die. If you are not familiar with camping gear it is all based on
lies. A six man tent would sleep three maybe four very friendly and
not too big guys. A sleeping bag rated for 0 degrees will keep you
warm down to about 40 but no colder. Mine was rated at zero and it
was only 10 degrees outside so I thought I was well in the black.
Nope. It was the coldest most miserable night in my entire life. At
my mothers direction I had packed all sorts of wacky contingency
items and no extra protection from the cold. I was shivering and had
curled into a ball at the bottom of my basically useless bag and
tried to wait for morning. It would not hurry up at all and the night
poked along lazily toward the dawn at the slowest speed imaginable.
About five I figured if I was going to die I should die trying to
live and I went out and spent thirty minutes trying to start the
fire. One of the long suffering leaders who was in a tent with a
stove heard me farting around and came out to see what I was up to. I
told him I was way too cold and I needed a fire, he took pity on me
and let me lay on the floor of their tent that was, frankly, a little
too warm. I went right to sleep and didn't wake up until breakfast
was on. I decided that night that I was not an outdoorsy person and
that nature was not a friend to be fraternized with but an enemy to
be subdued by the power of bio-fuel combustion.
