Via A Small Victory, I was pointed to this little bit of piss and vinegar spewed forth by one Hesiod. Let us commence with the dissection:
TIME FOR IRAQ-WAR LIARS TO STEP UP TO THE PLATE: Do you REALLY care about human rights and deposing a "brutal dictator, or are you just lying your pathetic asses off about it to cover up for your otherwise bankrupt political and moral ideology?
Thanks for asking. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do care about human rights and deposing a "brutal dictator." And, my otherwise bankrupt political and moral ideology actually consists of overflowing coffers. What I feel Hesiod was doing here, rather than asking a question, was screaming into the wind because he's lost patience with everything that has gone right for the Bush administration. Like him or loathe him, you have to admit the President has the political Midas touch going for him right now.
"Top U.S. arms negotiator John Bolton described North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Thursday as a tyrannical dictator who lived like royalty while jailing thousands and keeping many hungry in a "hellish nightmare."
I think we all know that answer to that question, don't we?
You will make all kinds of excuses for NOT invading and deposing Kim Jong Il.
"He's got nuclear weapons."
"He can wipe out Seoul."
"He's just bluffing."
"He's bottled up by South Korea and China."
Blah...blah...blah.
A ham-fisted segue into a rant to be sure, but I'll play along. Hesiod's "blah. . .blah. . .blah" dismissal belies the fact that he himself gave very telling reasons why we're walking on political eggshells in North Korea. Whereas we went after Saddam BEFORE he had nukes, Kim Jong Il apparently very much has them. You don't amass 100,000 troops for an invasion of NK and not expect some sort of nuclear problem. No one, for a second, thinks Kim Jong Il is bluffing, however, which is why we're taking a far more cautious approach. No, he's not bottled up by South Korea, but he sure as hell is bottled up by China. If old Kim keeps up his rhetoric, it's only a matter of time before China knocks on his door telling him to keep his voice down. But, let's see where Hesiod is going with this.
The bottom line is, you don't care about human rights abuses. You never cared about human rights abuses. And you never WILL care about human rights abuses...in Iraq, or anywhere else.
It's a figleaf. A beard. A phony affectation of human concern...solely adopted for rhetorical purposes. [And Lord knows, it's never manifested itself with respect to the majority of Palestinians, among others].
Okay, so if I gather Hesiod correctly here, his beef is with human rights or something, even though he's taking his own sweet time getting to the point. Of course, as with any truly bleeding heart humanitarian, Hesiod is apparently in love with the Palestinian cause, because the Palestinians are such an oppressed and subjugated people. And they're such nice and stable people, who send their children off to camp, and even show them how to use guns and bombs. Ah, but let's allow Hesiod to continue with whatever it is he's trying to get to.
So...I'd appreciate it if you lying sacks of shit would stop PRETENDING you care about the Iraqi people, when clearly you never did, and still don't.
Okay, so, before getting to whatever point he's trying to get to, he wants to call me a lying sack of shit first and make broad generalizations about who I do and do not care about. I'll allow that, although I'd sure like it if he maybe would, I don't know, get to the fucking point.
Now, I know the response from the Bush Fedayeen will be that I'm some sort of a hypocrite on this issue.
Let me address that little canard right now.
I am AGAINST military action to overthrow Kim Jong Il. I think, from a practical standpoint, its too late to take that kind of action.
Oh good, then we agree on something, although I'd still like to see a point. Hesiod should really start taking some sort of medication to help with his literary ADD.
I think that North Korea, however, desperately needs our attention. We should be shipping food there, regardless of whether or not it tends to prop up that brutal son of a bitch. The people are starving in the millions, and letting them starve to effectuate a pissing match between George W. Bush and Kim Jong Il is not humane.
Yes, because that's how you deal with a braying meglomaniacal leader with an arsenal of nukes issuing daily threats: you send him food. You appease him. You stroke his demented little ego. In Hesiod's world, sending food to NK automatically means the starving masses would get that food, rather than the swollen ranks of the country's military. That way, when they storm across the 38th parallel, at least they'll be well fed.
I DO think that negotiating with the North Koreans, bilaterally, is the only way to diffuse the current crisis. We really have no choice, at this point, thanks to the diplomatic bungling of the Bush administration.
Oh, good, bilaterally, perhaps with the French. Crisis, indeed. The moment that NK head case Kim Jong Il actually burns out his last functioning brain cell and initiates a nuclear attack, then I'd call it a crisis. Somewhere around here, I'm sure Hesiod has some sort of point. I'll keep looking.
As for Iraq, I have expressed my views on that topic quite often. My message to the people of Iraq before the war was, "I feel you pain, but U.S. national interests and strategic concerns take precedence over your suffering."
Who is this guy, Bill Clinton? He feels their pain? Well then, he must have been dangling upsidedown while Uday beat the soles of his feet with a baseball bat.
Sorry to say it, but that's how I felt. And you know what? I'm not the least bit embarrassed or apologetic about it. Accuse me of endorsing the murder of Iraqis all you want...it makes no difference to me. It's nothing but mindless, desperate lashing out, as far as I'm concerned.
A telling paragraph, that, because it totally exposes a fatal flaw in his still pointless logic. For Hesiod, you see, killing is only wrong if the U.S., and more specifically, Bush and company, are responsible. The killing of Iraqis by and Iraqi leader is okay, so long as U.S. intervention isn't on his conscience. I would call Hesiod's logic hypocritical, but that's too nice of a word.
But, now that we've gone and made a mess of things for the United States long-term national interests, I think we should limit the damage as much as possible by internationalizing the reconstruction and security of Iraq as quickly as we can.
If that means turning administration of Iraq over to the United Nations, until Iraqis can take over their own government, then so be it.
Ah yes, the United Nations, that bastion of international goodwill; I'm sure they're just what Iraq needs. After all, the U.N. came up with and oversaw the successful oil for food program that allowed Saddam to build all those opulent palaces, while at the same time giving the Ba'athists an invaluable tool for keeping tabs on the Iraqi people. Yep, let's hand things over to the U.N., where the motto is "We Sure Mean Well, But Damn We're Corrupt."
If our REAL motivation [remember, that's what you are all claiming now] was to "free the Iraqi people" from a brutal dictator, that means we should respect their aspirations, fully, and cede control of Iraq to THEM within 1 year. That doesn't just mean we have a bunch of elections, and still keep over 100,000 troops in country maintaining security. That means,...we get the fuck OUT. Or at least drastically reduce our troop contingent, and turn over security operations to international forces under the auspices of the UN.
Okay, that was about the most bone-headed paragraph ever penned. What Hesiod fails to grasp is that roughly 17 percent of the Iraqi people want coalition forces entirely out of Iraq, while 65 percent think they should stay until the job is complete. The short-sighted folks in the world, of which Hesiod is a card-carrying member, can't wrap their minds around a long-term commitment because they've never seen a long-term commitment. The rebuilding of Europe and Asia after WWII, for example, were long-term commitments. And again with the U.N. To the Hesiods of the world, everything can be fixed by the U.N. Instead, here's an idea: let's keep our troops in-country, clean up the rabble that think Saddam and Ba'athists were great, take down a few moronic terrorist fighters sneaking across the borders to fight, establish a new governmental model, rebuild the living shit out of their country making it a Middle East ideal, and do all of that without the U.N., and then get the fuck OUT. That's a better idea.
I know a few of you wackos still think we invaded Iraq to turn it into a shining example for the rest of the "Arab world" but I'm sorry to say that it will have no legitimacy, whatsoever, unless we (as I said) get the fuck out.
You see, in Hesiod's mind, after a country invades another country, obliterating its infrastructure and governmental system, that country should pull up stakes and leave them all alone to fend for themselves, which is more or less what they'd have to do if you let the esteemed U.N. take care of things. Hesiod is what we in the real world would call "a rabid isolationist." He doesn't remotely understand the world, and he doesn't want to. He just wants to blame somebody for it.
Any government in Iraq, no matter how it is chosen, will not be viewed as legitimate by the Iraqi people, or anyone else in the Arab world, so long as we are backing them up with U.S. military might.
Unless, say, the Iraqi people conduct an election, an honest to goodness election, free from the fear and intimidation of the Ba'athists. And, really, who gives a flying fuck if any other country in the Arab world save Iraq views the government as "legitimate?" Oooh, Syria doesn't see the Iraqi government as legitimate. I'm sure they'll lose a of sleep over that.
Moreover, the strong possibility exists that the U.S., via its Iraq "Governing council" stooges, will make the Ba'ath party, and fundamentalist Islamic parties "illegal." Thus, aping the autocratic behavior of such states as Egypt and Algeria. Way to send a message, guys!
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a whole bunch of people in Iraq who are against banning the Ba'ath party. Maybe Saddam would raise a stink, but that's about it. Actually, it is a way to send a message, and a good one. Namely, "sword weilding mullahs calling for jihad against the Jews and those who support them are not allowed in the Iraqi government." Seems like a good governmental mandate to me.
This will have two effects:
1) It will completely undermine our whole "we believe in democracy and freedom" argument.
2) It will make those two parties, as odious as they are, into the INSTRUMENTS of organized opposition in Iraq...to U.S. endorsed political parties and officials.
1) Banning Ba'athists and Islamic fundamentalists would ensure democracy by keeping those oppressive pukes from turning the country back into a realm of fear and hate and stagnation.
2) Yeah, just like the KKK has organized relevance here in the U.S. Honestly, Hesiod could use a major whack over the head with a Clue X Four.
Now, you may say that we have no real choice in the matter, and cannot allow the Ba'athists and the Fundamentalists to gain political power in Iraq.
Yes, actually, I just did say that. Thank you for the validation.
You know what? I agree with you. And folks like me have been pointing out this problem since BEFORE the war. But, as I said, we have made our bed, and now we have to lie in it.
What you just saw here was some intense back-pedalling followed by the most pathetic resignation. EVER. This whole thing has read like some whacko with a machete slicing at the air with no real target in view.
There are no real "good" options, only ones that do less damage than others.
So...from now on, I suggest we have two courses of conduct before us: We either do things the right way, or the Bush way.
So, there you have it folks: after all this searching for a point, we finally, FINALLY get to it. Namely, Bush is always wrong. Way to construct a totally nothing argument, Hesiod. Way. To. Go.
The Force is weak with this one. Unlike Tawny Roberts, who makes a Force strong in my pants. Or Tyra Banks, for that matter.
Ah, yes, nothing like being assigned a 2,000+ word article on technology you know nothing about, and you have no idea who your contacts are, or even really where to begin at all, plus you have all the other work that's expected of you each month on deadline. Oh, and the article has to be done on Wednesday. That's all on the downside. The upside is that, since this is all above and beyond what is expected of me, I'm getting paid 75 cents a word to get this thing done on time. In other words, milk. every. last. sentence. so. I. can. ponder. a. new. car. Not that I need a new car, mind you, but the thought of money dangling in front of me does strange things to my "I want" list. Th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!
I've never been in debt. Okay, that's not entirely true. Yes, I've been in the kind of debt where I had to make car payments, and I'm currently in the kind of debt that says I have to make house payments.
I've never been in credit card debt, however. Truth be told, I've never even owned a credit card. I don't trust them. I've been conditioned not to trust them thanks to many years of living with college roommates.
Most of my college roommates had this weird outlook on credit cards. Basically, they thought credit cards were magical pieces of plastic that just magically paid for things and that they were somehow immune from the the ensuing debt that came about due to excessive credit card spending.
I'll admit it: I was sort of jealous of my roommates and their magical credit cards. After all, they always seemed to have money and, if they didn't, they just whipped out their credit cards. Books? Put them on the credit card. Food? Put it on the credit card. Night out at a strip club? credit card.
And yet there I was writing checks and budgeting like a fool. I remember thinking that I was doing everything all wrong. I mean, there I would sit, meticulously lording over my finances, while my roommates went waltzing all over town swiping their credit cards with the careless glee of a six-year-old with a loaded pistol.
Then, one year, I was a roommate with a guy named Chad. Chad was actually a former high school classmate of mine. He was, and is, a tech-head. He's one of those guys who was born to know technology. Way back in elementary school, he taught me how to write simple programs for the Apple IIc, and he always just seemed to know everything about computers.
But he didn't know shit about personal finances. He whipped out any one of his many credit cards with the swiftness and ease of a Old West gunslinger. By the time we became roommates, he had already accrued over $10,000 in credit card debt.
I remember thinking what an incredibly large amount of money that seemed to be, especially when I factored in the understanding that he also received financial aid, and that he also worked. Granted, he worked at the local Brach's candy factory on the Gummi Bear line, which paid about as well as you might imagine, but it was still money, so I came to the conclusion that old Chad was a pretty carefree spender.
Well, one day, I popped into Chad's outrageously messy room where I noticed, tucked between two huge bags of pilfered defective Gummi Bears, a credit card notice that was slugged "Urgent!" and another that was slugged "Immediate Payment Required" and still another that read "We Break Fingers And Toes."
Then the calls started coming in, usually two or three a day. "Is Mr. Haugen available? We really need to speak with him." No, he's not here. "Are you sure you're not really Mr. Haugen?" Yes, I'm sure. "Well, when he comes in, have him call Mike at Discover immediately." *sound of shotgun cocking* Will do.
Chad was masterful when it came to avoiding creditors. He always seemed to leave the apartment just two or three minutes before a creditor called. It was like he had some sort of sixth sense. Which was all fine and dandy, except that I ended up being the intermediary between Chad and the creditors, so I got to absorb all the impatient anger and suspicion of basically every credit card company on the planet.
It was the day a creditor appeared, in person, at our doorstep that I realized Chad's debt situation was probably more dire than Chad cared to admit. There was a knock at the door, I answered, and a gentleman in a suit that looked both impressive and threatening stood before me. He asked to see a Mr. Chad Haugen, at which point I heard a little scuffling emanating from Chad's room as Chad scurried out the back entrance which, conveniently, was located at the far end of his bedroom.
We chatted together, the ominous creditor and me, for about an hour, waiting for Chad to get home, even though, of course, there was no way in holy hell Chad was going to make an appearance while that guy was in our apartment. I even had to produce my ID, so the creditor was satisfied that I wasn't, in fact, Chad Haugen.
After that, I believe, Chad ended up getting a loan from his parents, or somebody, so he could pay off his credit card debt at least enough to keep the creditors at bay. He eventually got a job working at IBM, which was a long-assed commute from Winona to Rochester, but paid a whole lot more than the Gummi Bear line.
As for me, Chad's experience with credit cards pretty much scared me away from plastic for good.
1. What is people's greatest misconception about you?
Holy mangled grammar Batman! Okay, Yoda, let's clean that up just a tad before moving on. What is the biggest misconception people have about you? There, that be better. Let's see. I guess that, since I sport a shaved head and a goatee, and perpetual scowl made deeper by large eyebrows, people who don't know me think I'm a mean badass. Which I'm not. I'm a teddy bear. Granted, I'm a teddy bear with no verbal filter whatsoever, but I'm a teddy bear.
2. What is your most over used expression?
Probably, "Sticking a fat, gnarled toe into the vagina" of something. Okay, no, not really. I say "fuck-a-duck-a-ding-dong" a bit too much, actually, which is easy and fun to say, but it's a bitch to type (just look at all those dashes). I've also started agreeing with people by saying "Darn tootin' Rasputin," which makes no sense at all, but it just rolls off the tongue.
3. If they made a movie of your life, who would you want to play you and who do you think would end up playing you?
I'm thinking Vin Diesel. Nah, my life's too boring for that much of a physique. I'd need a more stringy looking actor with a shaved head and goatee, like maybe Luke Wilson with no hair. He has my eyebrows and my build, and he should really give them back to me right away. But, being that Hollywood would go and totally get my life all wrong on the big screen, I'm sure they'd go and pick some yokel like Corey Feldman. Corey who? Exactly.
4. If you could have sex with anyone, ever, who would it be?
If you know me at all, you know that I'm on a serious Salma Hayek kick right now. I would die a happy man if I suffered a heart attack while reaching orgasm with that Latina goddess straddling my wang. Salma, if you're reading this, and I know you are, please help fulfill my fantasy. And, if you could bring a briefcase of cash for me to spend, well, all the better.
5. What's the best and worst thing you've done for or to your appearance?
Shaving my head when I was 21 was the best thing I ever did, because it was a pre-emptive strike against the male pattern baldness that stalks my family like a follical grim reaper. When last I had hair, I had a respectable amount, and that's how I'll always remember it, rather than the melting retreat of the cranial ice caps that leaves so many ever-hopeful men crying in a sink full of hair. Worst thing? Can't really say, because I'm pretty conservative with my body: no tattoos, no piercings, no tongue splitting. Perhaps the worst thing I've done to my appearance is that I've done nothing at all. But, probably not.
6. What's your best physical trait? (yeah, yeah, shallow like the Friday Five on Prozac and Ritalin but I'm curious so there ya go)
Well, as you all know, I'm a smoking hot specimen of male hunkiness, which is a really great and rare trait to have. I've been told I have a cute butt, but seeing that my butt is not in my direct line of view, I can't really verify that. I guess I take a little bit of narcissistic pride in the fact that I'm thin and muscular in a lean sort of way. There's all that, and then of course there's my monstrous dong.
I went swimming with my buddy, Marc, yesterday after work. He lives in an apartment complex that features a nice pool that is ideal for ogling women. Alas, there was very little women ogling to do, owing to a lack of women while we were down at the pool. Oh well, the water was warm so the swimming was great.
Until. . .
"Hi! I'm Katlyn!" shrieked a small voice behind me, and I turned around to see a little child wearing a life vest standing at the edge of the pool, peering intently at me.
"Oh, hi Katlyn," I said, and returned to the game of catch I was playing with Marc. But, before I could turn around completely, my eyes briefly scanned the rest of the family that had just arrived. There was a very large woman and a very skinny man, both of whom looked like they took severe and debilitating tumbles from an ugly tree.
The woman, in addition to her large stature, had a blotchy face and was apparently losing her bedraggled auburn hair in clumps. The skinny man had a not-so-bright look to him (although Marc informed me that he is, actually, a gifted computer programmer), and his face was apparently forever stuck in a goofy-looking grin, which was made more googy-looking due to a mouth full of uneven, Cleetus-like teeth.
But, perhaps the most goofy aspect of the skinny man was that he was wearing a life jacket. And, I don't mean just any life jacket, either. This was one of those industrial-strength life jackets that you see professional water-skiiers wearing. Seeing a grown man, probably in his 30s, wearing one in an apartment complex swimming pool that does not exceed a depth of five feet seemed somehow surreal.
In addition to the Pollyanna-ish Katlyn, the family also featured a baby boy? girl? (not sure), a baby with eyes so wide I was convinced they were going to pop out of its head and roll into the pool.
Then, from Katlyn, a torrent of conversation erupted. This girl would not shut up. Katlyn, I think, lives under the belief that, since she has to breathe, she may as well use each and every breath for constructing words. Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap!
The skinny man entered the pool tentatively, grasping the rail and gingerly stepping down into the shallow end (max depth: three feet). The look on his face was priceless. In addition to his perma-grin, his eyes were lit up in a combination of what appeared to be fear and unbridled excitement. Did I mention his wife had to help him put his life jacket on? His wife had to help him put his life jacket on. Those life jacket buckles and straps can be sooooo confusing. He paddled around for a bit, and then he exited the water.
"Are you guys playing catch?" asked Internet.com/~eplaz/euronat/images/nudist_photo.jpg">Katlyn, a little human bobber perpetually spouting words. "I can help you play catch!"
Emboldened by his earlier successful sojourn into the shallow end, the skinny man now did an odd little stutter-step run and jump, toothpick-style, into the deep end. He appeared ecstatic upon resurfacing and he bobbed triumphantly in five feet of water. Meanwhile, the rather large woman sat contentedly on the pool steps, keeping an eye on the youngest of the family seed.
Katlyn paddled around furiously to retrieve the water balls Marc and I were playing catch with. She would then coil her little body up and throw with all her might, for a distance of about four feet.
"Well, I'm just a girl," she explained.
"Really? You're just a girl?" laughed the skinny man floating in the deep end. "I never would have guessed that!" *chortled to himself*
Katlyn then announced she was officially entering our game of catch, which was my cue to exit the pool and "check the time." As luck would have it, it was exactly time for Marc and I to leave. How convenient.
That was, without a doubt, the weirdest family I had ever seen.
I'm a journalist, which is a term that means absolutely nothing, no matter how much the mainstream media may try to make "journalism" sound like some sort of romantic and selfless endeavor to bring information to the news-hungry masses. Whatever.
When people ask what I do for a living, I don't tell them I'm a journalist. That just sounds too hokey, and it really doesn't tell them what the hell I really do for a living anyway. Rather, I tell them that I write for a few IBM magazines, while dabbling in weekly humor columns on the side.
But journalist? I try not to mention that I'm even remotely entwined with journalism. Why? Because journalism, no matter how deluded some in the journalism field may be who think otherwise, is not looked favorably upon by the vast majority of the American public.
People don't trust journalists, or, more specifically, big media. And it's no wonder. During the course of a single year, we've had Jayson Blair making up news, Maureen Dowd doctoring quotes, conflicting reports coming out of Iraq on a daily basis, and with Reuters news service flat-out making things up and attributing false bylines. It should be enough to make every newspaper across the nation arrange hurried meetings to deal with the corruption almost certainly taking place within their ranks. But, they don't, because they've learned that they can still rake in the cash even in the midst of reader apathy. They should be monumentally embarrased, but they're not. But I am.
The problems, of course, are many. First and foremost, each and every news organization adheres to political agendas, whether locally, nationally or internationally, and those political agendas taint everything they report on. They never told me this in any of my journalism classes. Rather, I was encouraged to strive for un-biased reporting, and I did my damndest to achieve just that. But, relatively unbiased stories, I quickly learned, became suddenly biased as soon as they hit the editing desk. Some words were taken out while other were slipped in, with the end result being a story that had a decidedly biased slant to it. I don't blame the editors for this. They were just doing their job, and their job was to make a story more compelling for readers, and one of the quickest ways to make a story more compelling is to take a side.
Therefore, unbiased news is a myth. It doesn't exist. Writers and editors, once they have the pen at the ready, can't resist interjecting their own views and opinions. And I don't believe this is a problem that can be fixed. Actually, I wonder sometimes if it even qualifies as a problem. American newspapers, going back to Colonial times, all exhibited bias of some sort. Hell, it could be argued, convinvingly, that if it weren't for newspaper bias, the American Revolution would never have come about.
But, bias is one thing. Ignoring facts to better fit your political agenda is quite another. Today's news organizations have gone beyond simple bias and into the realm of news fabrication and selecting only those tidbits of information that fit nicely into their political agendas. The current situation in Iraq should provide instructive fodder for journalism schools for the next 50 years. As readers, we can't for a second pretend to know what is actually going on in Iraq, because that country has become such a political hot potato practically every story coming out of there represents only a sliver of the truth. Reporters going into that country are either hell-bent on making it sound bad (Robert Fisk, hint hint) or hell bent on making it sound good (anybody from Fox news, hint hint). That's selective reporting that does a major disservice to the readership.
And then you have the Jayson Blairs in the industry who simply opt to make up news, selling it as fact as they sit at home playing their X-box. Reporters do this because many reporters are just flat-out lazy, and in today's instant communication world, it's easier than ever to be flat-out lazy so long as you have talent as a writer: the information is right at their fingertips, and all they have to do is pretty it up in a sort of creative writing exercise. It's not a new phenomenon by any means, but now reporters trying to pull that type of shit have to deal with a vigilant Internet community that will pounce on them viciously the moment someone catches them in the act.
I think one of the reasons big media has chosen to largely ignore blogs is because they recognize them as a journalism police force that they'd rather not acknowledge. Ignore them and they'll go away, the reasoning goes, only I don't think blogs will be going away any time soon, if ever. And I think it would behoove every journalist, new and established, to start up a blog, and blog daily. This blog has opened my eyes to the reality of the Internet and how it is the single most powerful tool at a reporter's disposal. The Internet, and blogs in particular, will rewrite journalism textbooks. The old way of doing journalism is withering right before my eyes.
Andrew Sullivan gets it.
Glenn Reynolds gets it.
And now I get it.
So, I went camping with my girlfriend last weekend, and I came to a sad and sobering conclusion. Namely, I discovered that my girlfriend doesn't know how to camp, or, more appropriately, my girlfriend doesn't know how to camp the Ryan Rhodes way.
You see, my camping expectations are fairly modest. When I go camping, I want to light fireworks, eat potato chips and other junk food, drink some beer, build a campfire so large it can be seen on the moon, and sleep in a tent. These are my modest camping goals and, by adhering to these goals, I have yet to endure a bad camping experience.
Sadly, my girlfriend doesn't apparently understand my streamlined approach to camping. Whereas I like to do nothing when I'm camping, she's not content unless she's busy doing something, which is a totally alien camping approach to me.
I became suspicious of my girlfriend's concept of camping when, while discussing our one day camping trip, she said we should sit down and make a list of the things we'd need. A list? What's that? Is it some sort of firework, or possibly a brand of beer?
Making a list of camping necessities is, to me, a ridiculous idea. After all, camping is supposed to be an excuse to get away from it all, not to make a list so you remember to bring it all with you.
"How is camping even fun for you?" she asked, and I explained that, when camping, all I want to do is light fireworks, eat potato chips and other junk food, drink some beer, build a campfire so large it can be seen on the moon, and sleep in a tent. She didn't seem to understand what the heck I was talking about.
But, it was our eventual conversation about camping food that almost sent her over the edge. She said we had to go to the grocery store to buy chicken breasts and potatoes and bread and something to cook for breakfast and. . . I gave her a blank stare.
"I thought we'd just go to a restaurant before we go out to the campsite," I offered hopefully, and she clenched her teeth and rolled her eyes so far back in her head I think she saw her own brain.
Apparently, for my girlfriend, cooking a complicated meal over a campfire is an integral part of the camping experience. I, on the other hand, believe cooking a complicated meal over a campfire constitutes doing something and, as I pointed out earlier, when I go camping I want to do nothing.
It's so simple, really. All I want to do is light fireworks, eat potato chips and other junk food, drink some beer, build a campfire so large it can be seen on the moon, and sleep in a tent. Why is that so hard to understand?
As a compromise, we settled on buying bratwurst, which are super easy to cook, although I was still a little disappointed that we didn't go out to a restaurant.
In the end, my girlfriend busied herself with cooking bratwurst, cleaning up around the campsite, including, if you can believe this, putting a "Welcome" mat in front of the tent.
I, on the other hand, lit fireworks, ate potato chips and other junk food, drank some beer, built a campfire so large it could be seen on the moon, and slept in a tent.
