I am not a camper.  I have nothing against camping, but my idea of roughing it is settling for a Holiday Inn without cable TV and an indoor pool.  If they don't have an in-house restaurant--and you actually have to drive somewhere else to eat--that's a hardship as well.  Downright barbaric, if you ask me, which of course, you did not.

So we ("the family") went camping.  This was not my decision as you can probably imagine.  In addition to having rather poor judgment in vacation choices (a warm sandy spot would have been nice) we apparently have poor timing.  We chose the coldest weekend of the fall to make our little outing.  Of course, if you are married, then you know that it is MY fault that the weather took a turn for the colder, because I refused to allow any excursions on any Penn State football weekend.  It really doesn't matter what the reason is or what conflicts arose on any other weekend--it was still my fault.

Fortunately, this was not a pitch your tent type of outing.  My wife compromised to allow us to rent a cabin, mainly because she has an abnormally extreme phobia of critters that crawl on the ground.  She won't sleep with them.  Now I suppose they could crawl into the cabin and share some body heat with us, but she diligently shakes out the bed sheets and flips the mattress around before getting into bed.  I'm pretty sure the little critters are more scared of her than she is of them, as hard as that is to believe.

But I digress.  I tend to do that a lot.  It reminds me about a study I recently read about . . . according to this study, children under the age of two are at a higher risk of developing ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) if they watch television.  After reading this scientific dissertation, I have concluded that these investigators have way too much time on their hands.

In all honesty, I did not read the study.  I meant to read the study, but I lost interest after the first paragraph.

I watched a lot of television in my younger days.  Television is not the problem.  Is there a problem?  Who said something about a problem?

The problem is not TV--it is the shows that kids these days are watching.  I blame this disorder on a steady diet of Barney, Teletubbies and whatever those worm things are.  Give me a break.

Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.  I'm suddenly hungry.  After all, I do deserve a break today.

Television has nothing to do with influencing the minds of our youth.  I grew up on television.  Well, not literally.  I did eat a lot of TV dinners.  I like the apple crisp thingy better than the cranberry crap.  But I have watched my fair share, and I doubt very seriously that I suffer from an attention def

The shows today are what I am worried about.  My kids are watching Power Rangers and Yu-Gi-Oh (like Oh-Mi-God), and Power Puff Girls and Sponge Bob Square Pants.  All, right, I really like Sponge Bob, so I'll leave him alone.  I'll pick on Squidward instead.  No, I kind of like Squidward too--just don't tell anybody.

But where are the really good children's shows that I grew up on?  What's Mr. Green Jeans doing now?  Didn't you just love it when the ping pong balls fell on Captain Kangaroo?  Where is Tom & Jerry?  And what about the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote?  Does ACME still sell explosives by mail order, and should we be concerned if this information falls into the hands of terrorists?

I used to love Bugs Bunny.  What would have happened if he had made that left turn?  What would happen if someone in Albuquerque makes a left turn?  Where do they end up?  Have you ever lain awake at night wondering about that?

I obviously have a lot of "issues" here, and once again, I have lost focus.  We were camping, weren't we?

And the temperature was below freezing.  Oh, joy.  Rapture.  I have a brain--and it has frozen solid and failed to get me out of this situation.

Okay--the cabin is heated.  But there's like no TV.  No radio.  We are miles--well, at least a mile--from civilization.  I have a cell phone--but no service.  No one can hear me now, as I scream like a little girl.  There is a cabin next door, but I saw the campers, and they are anything but civilized.  I swear the guy looks like Jeffrey Dahmer.  The others, well, they kind of resemble supper I suppose.  But I have freaking digressed again.

The kids want to roast marshmallows and make smores.  What can it hurt?  We have a good dental plan.

My wife reminds me that I have no dental plan.  I don't even have a dental plan B.  I don't have a dental clue.  Very well, then, I'll stop digressing now.

I brought firewood.  Kindling.  Newspaper.  A lighter.  I'm not a Boy Scout, but boy was I prepared.  But the lighter failed--it was out of butane.  I did have matches--a back-up plan!  At this point, it beats no dental plan hands down.

Have you ever tried to start a fire miles away from civilization in freezing temperatures?  It is not as easy as it sounds.

Sure, Frosty can make a fearsome fire on a glacier to keep Karen warm.  Drop a cigarette in your local tenement, and the whole block is up in smoke before you can ask, "dude where's my car?"  Try to burn leaves on a windy day without catching your neighbor's house on fire.  But I dare you to make a simple campfire with wood, paper and a match.

My daughter informed me that she learned how to make a fire in Girl Scouts--using candle wax and dryer lint.  She's quite the little McGuyver.  Unfortunately, she failed to carry some dryer lint and candles with her.  My son offered some lint from his pocket.  I had a pretty good wad of belly button lint.  But alas, without the wax, I still couldn't get the fire going.  (I thought about picking my ear for wax . . .)

Sure, I'd wad up the paper and it would light like fireworks on the Fourth.  For a brief second, we had heat.  But half a minute later, all I had were some cold logs and paper ashes.  I wadded and lit.  Wadded and kindled.  I prayed.  I burnt my fingers--no easy task since they were nearly frozen solid and I could barely move them.  I had gloves, but they went up in flames way faster than the stupid logs.

"Try blowing on it.  I think it needs some air"

My derriere.  I huffed and I puffed.  I coughed.  I couldn't make fire but I could easily make smoke.  My lungs detest smoke.  Cavemen with barely opposable thumbs and no matches could make fire better than I.

I'm pretty sure with one match, I could have burned my house down.  In fact, I probably wouldn't even need a match--I could just do some electrical wiring.  But with an entire pack of matches, all I could manage was some smoke.  And you would think, where there's smoke . . .well, think again.  Where there's smoke, there's a guy trying to melt a marshmallow, but his tears keep putting the spark out.

I ran out of paper.  The kids started gathering dry leaves to throw on my fireless inferno.  It kept them occupied and made them forget about the frozen marshmallows.  The movement also kept them warm.

How did I get myself into this mess?  I should have made that left turn at Albuquerque.  Pismo Beach, here I come!

© 2004 by Todd A. Sponsler, MD