I've agreed to drive and (gulp) chaperone a group of kindergarten thru second graders on a camping trip to the beach.
The positive side is we'll be sleeping in yurts. This should be a huge improvement over 2 years ago when against my better judgment I took Scott on a campout with his then pre-school class. I took a tent on that one. We got rained out so badly that all of the campsites flooded. Any place that held a tent was underwater. While a number of families bailed and high-tailed it back to Portland Scott and I stuck it out. I pulled the seats out of the van (put them in the tent) and we slept in the van.
The bad news is I won't be in the yurt by myself. It sleeps 8. If I'm lucky maybe there'll be another adult, and 6 children as opposed to me against 7. I wistfully imagined myself in a yurt with girls playing Barbies, but since I'm chaperoning a son that's probably not to be. I'll be in the yurt with the yells, the sides billowing, the fart sounds. Note to self: earplugs! I can stand anything for one night. Yes? ????
So, we leave tomorrow at 9. We meet for lunch (maybe) at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Then on to Nehalem Bay campground.
We should be back sometime in the early afternoon Friday. But I may be too traumatized to write for a while.
Pray for me.
5 comments:
Wow! You'll have a great time!!
I used to do such things... kindergarten - 2nd grade is a bit better than teenagers!!
The cheese factory sounds good... make sure you take some home.
(And did you see that I'm thinking of visiting Ronda - the place where the Forgetting Room is)
Saying a whole BUNCH of Hail Marys.
Is she the patron saint of fart jokes?
No... it's actually the Lord's Prayer for this occasion... "Our farter, whof art in heaven..."
Both of you are so struck by lightning!
It ended up not being fart jokes. It was a version of potty talk, though: (whispered, followed by wild giggles): "penis. peeeeeeenissssss. penispenispenispenispenis." Followed by uproarious laughter.
A self-perpetuating fire. The usual efforts to extinguish merely feed it--because part of the appeal is in other people trying to get it to stop. I'd just let it run its course, but if it gets outside the yurt then it inflames the wider taboo: FLASHOVER
"Eli! Scott! No more potty talk!"
Eli: "Well, he only said *suck*."
Scott: "No, Eli said *fuck*!"
"NO MORE!"
Eli: "Well, he only said SUCK"
Scott: "No, I said F...."
rinse lather repeat...
shit.
At the risk of being completely sophomoric I had to include this dispassionate definition of farts from Wikipedia. What occasioned this is Scott asking me this morning why farting is also called "breaking wind". I hoped to find an origin of the phrase. I didn't look hard enough, but I did enjoy this explanation:
"Flatus is expelled under pressure through the anus, whereby, as a result of the voluntary or involuntary relaxation of the anal sphincter, the rapid evacuation of gases from the lower intestine occurs. Essentially this happens when the flatus pressure inside the rectum exceeds the anal sphincter's ability to restrain it. Depending upon the relative state of the sphincter (relaxed/tense) and the positions of the buttocks, this often results in a crackling or trumpeting sound, but gas can also be passed quietly. The olfactory components of flatulence include skatole, indole, and sulfurous compounds.[1] The non-odorous gases are mainly nitrogen (ingested), carbon dioxide (produced by aerobic microbes or ingested), and hydrogen (produced by some microbes), as well as lesser amounts of oxygen (ingested) and methane (produced by anaerobic microbes).[2]" From Wikipedia
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