Humorous Speech Contest Entry

I hate camping.

Get back to nature? Nature is for the birds. I grew up in Southwest Detroit--the only "nature" that we had was squirrels and those things are mean. We knew darn well to stay away from "nature." But we were tough. We grew up in the inner city. Still we had indoor plumbing--why would anyone intentionally give that up?

But my parents dragged us all on a camping trip at least once a year. One time we went in late fall. What on earth were they thinking--there was frost on the ground. The zipper to the tent was frozen shut--ridiculous.

We did get to see Bears though. Yup--Bears--Plural--many bears. We weren't even scared. We heard all the horror stories about people being attacked by bears. One guy lost an arm when a bear bit it off, we were told. And so, what does my Dad do? He askes the rangers where can we go to see Bears. The City Dump. That's right, we went to the City Dump after dark and lined up with about 10 other cars shining their headlights on all the bears at that garbage buffet.

So when I became an adult, I was sure that my camping days were over. Not so.

I became a Girl Scout leader and soon--way too soon--I was hoodwinked into camping. My first camping trip was with very young girls, six to eight year olds, but actually I had more parents than girls on the trip. So there I was with about 20 girls and more than 20 adults. It should have been so easy, right? Wrong. I did all the worrying and work, while the parents were on vacation.

The camp had outdoor bunk beds so that you slept out under the stars, with the bugs and the mice and the wild animals. Oh joy. For some reason I kept having nightmares that one of the little girls was going to fall out of her bunk and roll down the hill in the middle of the night. Yeah, great vacation.

Oh and no indoor plumbing--did I mention that little gem about camping.

On another camping trip with older girls, I again somehow managed to have as many adults as girls and yet, I didn't sit down the whole weekend. Oh, I brought a chair, but everytime I went to sit down, some other parent had their butt in my chair. Ugh. When they asked the girls their favorite part of the weekend at the end of the trip, my girls said sleeping in a tent. My response was, we can do that in my back yard--what the heck are we out here for.

Finally, finally, finally, when my niece was finished with her girl scout career, I thought, no more camping, no more camping.

BUT, I was a trainer for other leaders and guess which area had the greatest shortage of trainers: Camping Skills.

So I went camping again and I said "Yummm" when I tasted the gooey, disgusting chocolate cake that we baked in the peel of a hollowed out orange in a cardboard box. I thought, I'd rather eat a twinkie that tastes like plastic, but I said "Yumm." It was a cake that we cooked in a card board box.

And the last time that I went to the restroom in a public toilet at a campground, which is only mildly a step up from a hole (full of you know what) dug in the ground, I thought to myself just as dramatically as Scarlott O'Hare--never again, as God is my witness, never again. Famous last words.

My adorable baby niece is four years old and she started kindergarden this week. Next year she'll be old enough for Brownies--I know that she'll be a girl scout. And she has a younger sister. You know that they will need a girl scout leader.

It is cake that you make in a cardboard box--I am completely defenseless, but oh, oh, oh, I hate camping.