My personal idea of hell on earth

I was at our local YMCA this morning, dragging myself out of the pool after an hour of water aerobics (don't be too impressed - I'm a member of the Silver Splash class where the lady closest to me in age graduated from high school with Calvin Coolidge) and one lady said, as she slipped on her flip-flops and picked up her towel and swim cap, "I'm going camping with my son and daughter-in-law and grandkids this weekend, so I'm going home to take a shower."

We all made that "ahhhhhh!!!" noise associated with grannies getting to spend time with the grandkids and she continued, "I just feel like I never really get my best shower here, and since we're going to be gone until Sunday evening and I won't get a bath or a shower until then, I want to make it a good one."

"You won't get to take a shower until Sunday evening?" another lady asked dubiously. "You must be camping rough."

"Yes, with a tent and everything," said camping lady, "but it's worth it to be able to spend time with the kids!"

My heart sank down to my bare toes. Honestly, I managed to find one of the few men in this area who, due to experiences in the Army with camping outdoors during the winter, refuses to camp, fish, hike or shoot animals with gun or arrow, thus extracting myself from the possibility of close association with the great outdoors. I have brought Meelyn and Aisling up to fervently believe that Nature is best viewed through windows, behind which we can enjoy either the central air conditioning or the central heating, whichever is appropriate. But I'd never really considered until that moment that someday, they meet men who actually want to go outside and stay there, and those men may influence my sweet girls into thinking that spending all weekend out in this terrible 90 degree summer heat and sweltering in an airless tent and cooking on a teeny little Coleman stove (or worse yet, a campfire) and going showerless for days on end is a fun way to bond.

And they may drag my innocent grandchildren into that mess.

And! I, as a doting grandma, might have to GO WITH THEM and live in outdoorsy squalor in order to prove my devotion.

As I drove home from the YMCA, I pondered whether or not I actually love anyone in this world enough to voluntarily spend the weekend in a tent, unbathed. I don't think I do. I will pack them up the most awesome picnic basket ever, and even tuck in some citronella candles and an Aim-n-Flame. I will stand on my front porch to wave goodbye and shout, "I love you! Have a great time! See you on Sunday!"

But I don't think I can actually go along. Unless maybe my husband and I can somehow obtain one of them camper-truck things like in the picture above. It looks like that vehicle is big enough to at least have a sink where I can splash my face, brush my teeth and take a sponge bath. I could probably do that for a weekend, for the sake of my daughters and grandchildren.

But I'm telling you, I already don't like those sons-in-law.