“Are we ready for the camping trip next weekend?”

“Are we ready?” I thought. “I’m barely even capable of finding my left shoe.” I looked up at Annie, “Short answer is no.” Annie frowned. “The house is a problem. Half the Living Room is taken over by jams and market materials, the other half is leftover end-of-school year chaos that we haven’t gotten around to addressing. I still have some of my own work crap in the corner. I have nowhere to stage all the camping stuff. We haven’t used any of our camping gear since last year, I don’t know what we have, or what we need. And five days to get it all done sounds exhausting.”

“What can we do to make it happen?”

“Being able to walk through the playroom would be nice. It would be nice if the floor was clear enough for me to stage everything.”

“Basically more spring cleaning.”

“Yeah.” I sighed, thinking about the next five days, “I suppose that would do it.”

The next day: “Girls! It’s been one hour! We need at least two bags of crap to come out of this room! We can’t go camping otherwise!” I repeated this phrase nearly every hour as I dragged up tents, and ground cloths, cookware, the camp stove and…crap! Practically half the basement!

“Girls? How’s it going up there?”

“Reggie isn’t helping!” I sighed and went upstairs. There they were. Playing.

I lit up a string of firecrackers and tossed it into the middle of the room. There was screaming and smoke. The smoke alarm was beeping. Sprinklers went off (Sprinklers? Since when did we have sprinklers?) The girls were apologizing and promising to get the room completely cleaned out in fifteen minutes. I stood there getting drenched, smiling with my eyes closed…

Cue the Record Scratch Sound. Fantasy is over. Back to real life:

My eyes opened back up. I rubbed my temples “Girls! Seriously, I am practically begging you to give our family a little room to pack and be ready for this trip!” They looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. I was nearly defeated. I looked out the window, Annie was pulling up the driveway from work. I went downstairs to meet her.

“Whoa! What happened here?” She asked, looking at the piles all over the Living Room.

“Camping Hun! (bleep)ing camping! But not anymore. I’m done. I’m going to put this crap back in the basement and we’re staying in this weekend. I’m tired, sweaty, stinky, and I’m at the end of my line. Oh! And the girls? They have gum in their gears. I give up.”

Annie was silent and thoughtful…and a little off-put by the insane glare in my eyes. (Clark Griswold makes more sense to me with every passing day) “Okay, this is not so much a camping trip as it is a mini vacation for us. We need to get out of this house for a few days, it’s getting to you. And you are getting to me…but I really Love you! It sucks that so much falls on you. Go sit down, relax. Take it easy for a bit.” She smiled at me in a sweet and gentle way. Then her face twisted into something more resembling Godzilla. “Girls! I’m Home!”

“Mommy!” They scampered down the stairs.

“Stop right there!” She roared. “Look at this living room. Look at your Father. You’ve pushed him too far. As of right now, the camping trip is off!” The girls looked shocked, tears began welling up in their eyes. Annie wasn’t moved. “Do you want this trip?”

“Yes.”

“Then get back up there and don’t come down until we have two garbage bags of toys to donate!”

“Mommy?”

“What?”

“Daddy yelled at us.”

“And so am I. You were wrong on this one Regina. Again I ask, do you want camping this weekend? More importantly, do you want supper tonight?”

(Oooh, she’s got to be bluffing! Poker face Brooks. Don’t give it away.)

“Yes.”

“Then prove it to us by fixing this room! No one eats until we see garbage bags, and by no one, I mean you two.”

(It’s got to be a bluff! She’s a feeder! Is she bluffing? Has it really come to this?)

Their heads dropped and they went upstairs. I suspected as much. They were holding out until Annie got Home. They were going to try and play her against me. Their plan backfired. Why do they keep trying that game? It has literally never worked.

The rest of the week was marginally easier, but getting them to move was never not a struggle.

The struggle gets a little worse each time. I am feeling the first hints of my physical abilities having limits. I can no longer charge and attack like I used to. Aging sucks.

Annie has a debilitating disease that has put a limit on nearly everything that she once did. She must take it easy and go slow if she doesn’t want to be sick, so a bulk of the physical labor has fallen on my shoulders. It’s a one-two punch that leaves me a little broken.

In the end, I still did it.

With God as my witness, I am honestly not entirely sure how I managed to get everything packed into that van! “Oh dear” I muttered, staring at the pack, “On Sunday I need to replicate this pack, only with full garbage bags added!”

The wind was insane that weekend. I had to double stake and double tie everything down. I had to reinforce things and brace things. To save space, Annie suggested we put food into the same cooler as the beer. That was an irritating mistake, digging around tomatoes and bratwurst to get to my can of Guinness did not help the tenuous grip I had on my mood. “Let’s write that one down. This seems like the kind of mistake we would repeat.” I said to Annie. She smiled in agreement.

We all slept beautifully Friday night. I woke up feeling pretty good. Our friends were there along with their kids. All our kids were running about nonstop, inventing scavenger hunts, and playing fetch with our friend’s dog.

I was relaxed, this was practically the first relaxation I had experienced since March.

“How’s it going Brooks?” I looked up at my friend Paul.

“Been better. I’m just decompressing. I’ve been overworked, overwhelmed, exhausted. I’m thinking about the monumental effort it took getting out here!”

“Same here. It was a struggle getting it together for us as well. Try to shake it! Here we are! Finally!”

“I know. But it was just such a ridiculous amount of labor.” He gave me a look, “No, I’m not thinking about ditching this trip next year. I just don’t want all. This. Work!

“This is what I think I’ll be doing with our camping gear, I think you should try this as well. Let’s write ‘it’s worth it’ on every camping box and bag we own.”

“Maybe.” I muttered. I swatted absentmindedly at my sour mood. “I’ll be fine. I’m still grumpy, I’ll get over it.”

“Cheers then?”

“Cheers.”

That night all eighteen of us were sitting around the fire. The children were recalling to us the scavenger hunt they had that afternoon. They told us about their “Quest for the Moth Man”. They each took turns telling scary stories with funny plot twists. The boys put on a couple of old Boy Scout camp skits. I chuckled, this was bordering on classic camping clichés! It truly looked like it could be a commercial for camping! On the other side of the fire I looked at Lydia giggling over a private joke with one of the boys. Regina came walking over to Annie, “Can I snuggle with you Mommy?”

“Sure Sweetie! Come on over!” She curled up on Annie’s lap and melted under her arms. “Are you tired?”

“A little.” She replied. Five minutes later, Regina was out, completely asleep, still snuggled in with Annie. I looked back at Lydia, she was yawning as she came over to snuggle with me.

“I Love you Daddy.” She said through a second yawn.

“I Love you too Lyd.” Her eyelids started getting heavy.

What would we have done that weekend if we didn’t do this? It would have likely been Home projects. That playroom would have been clean. I could have caught up on some editing. Maybe we would have gone to lunch somewhere. We’d probably all veg out on the couch and watch a movie. Is that where the memories happen? I can tell you what we would not be doing. We would not be sitting around a fire with folks we Love, laughing, relaxing and being with our children.

“It’s worth it.” I whispered.

“What Daddy?”

I smiled, “Nothing Hun. Go to sleep.”