Point #13-Creating space is hard

When one prepares to venture into the frozen north (of Florida) and brave the wooded expanses (of Florida) and sell stuff of a luminous nature (presumably to Floridians) it is right and meet that one be ready to face all challenges. Specifically one should test the screen tent first. Lest you end up looking like Lord of the Tardmos in front of a slew of amused SCAdians (members of the SCA and I am oh-so-sure that’s gonna be its own post tomorrow), it is very important to know which pole goes where and, in fact, that you have all the poles to start with.

To this end, the Incomparable April the Motivatress and I sallyed forth upon her lawn to test run the screen tent. It had been several years since she had used it, and the directions were long since blown to the four winds, so it seemed a good idea to make sure the damn thing would go, and stay, up.

We are two highly intelligent, creative, vibrant, and dare I say, beautiful, ladies. We know How Things Work. We are Down With Technology. We, I venture to say, Have the 411 On All That is Jiggy.

We were stymied by the stupid tent.

The Internet yielded no help as the company had gone out of business. We wandered in and out of the house, carrying the tent bag, checking online to see if we could find other poor schlubs in our predicament. We separated out the various poles, proud that we could sort out such complicated concepts as “1”, “2”…all the way up to “6”, and then, most amazingly of all, “3A” and “3B”. We stared down at the poles, and I can’t speak for April, but I was hoping they would magically form into a tent shape all by themselves solely through the power of my wishbeams. This didn’t happen.

The outcome of the story, of course, is, we did figure out roughly how the poles go, accompanied by much giggling and inappropriate innuendo, because putting up a tent is the most entendre-laced activity since drilling for oil. “We’re pitchin’ a tent…har har har” “This one goes in this hole here…har har har.” At one point, I toyed with a pole (har har har) and muttered, “You know this will be a new blog entry, right?” I can’t wait for tomorrow. If the damn thing doesn’t fall on us, bursting into flame in the process, I will be firmly convinced of a higher power.

After the near fiasco with the tent, we went to the diner for dinner and I put sugar on my fries instead of salt, which I see as proof that I am getting dumber by the hour.