Night Sounds

                                        

Like I said, it had been a long time since I camped. I love camping. The smells, the sounds, the grit of sand in everything. Awesomeness.

I am borrowing a tent. It’s one of those popup tents. I tell you, whoever invented that thing is a genius. How in the world anyone thought that if you’d just bend this twisty pole this way and that one that way, it will lie down flat as a saucer. If you unleash the band holding the tension, poof! You have a tent that you can stand up in! Pure genius! Unfortunately, you also have to be a genius to get it to go back into the saucer shape so you can, oh, I dunno, put it in your car and continue down the road! I did it…kind of…but it might be worth it to stop somewhere and see if I can invest in yet another tent for my own private collection, which is already substanial. A collection, I might add, which is currently in a storage unit in Michigan.

So yeah. Another thing I didn’t have was a camping mat. I have two of them in my stash in Michigan, one that I just brought home from Afghanistan. I never thought I’d need it in DC. One of my friends wisely suggested that I go to Walmart and buy an end-of-season air mattress. I did that. I even got a fancy one for $5.00 instead of the cheap, ordinary one they had for $2.00. Woo-hoo. My friend is very smart. (He also showed me how to fold the pop-up tent, which was a lot easier when we did it together.

Maybe I need to check Walmart for tents. I wonder if they’d be cheaper in Arkansas.

So, last night, as I was falling asleep to a chorus of crickets singing in beautiful harmony, thanking goodness for my good fortune, to be surrounded by such beauty, realizing that my $5.00 air mattress was quite sufficient and my borrowed down sleeping bag, that the same friend said was older than me, was just warm enough. All was well.

I had drifted off to sleep when I was awakened by what sounded like the howling of a dog. Interesting. I wonder if Oscar heard that.

Being a dachshund, Oscar was burrowed in as far as he could go into the mummy bag, where I was also sleeping. I think this was his first time camping, so he was plastered up against me, which made turning and adjusting difficult. And with so much on my mind lately, I have been a very restless sleeper. It simply wouldn’t do, so I shoved him down to the end of the bag, where my feet were, where there was more room, and he had his safe little cocoon. I hoped he wouldn’t get too hot because he wasn’t getting out too easily with me in there.

Anyway, the coyotes or whatever they were, were baying – attacking something or mating or whatever. I remembered once we’d heard them when I was at Rusty’s cabin not too far from here.

A little while later, I heard another sound, the long, low “whooooooooooo, whooooooooooooo” of an owl. I’d learned what owls sound like when I was at the Sandy Creek Nature Center in Athens, Georgia, where I’d served on the Board of Directors. Yep, I said to myself, owls are night creatures. I love camping. And I dozed off to sleep again.

A while later, I was awakened by footsteps. There was someone walking around my tent! Holy shit! There was someone walking around my tent. Where is Oscar? WTF kind of attack dog are you, Oscar, all shoved down there in the sleeping bag?? There is someone outside!! I quickly thought about what was out there. What could they want? I have been camping enough to know you don’t leave valuable things out. Everything was either locked in the car or in the tent with me. I’m not going out there in the middle of the night, I thought. They can take my camping chair. Where was my knife?

The footsteps were walking all around the tent. In my restlessness, I had scooted myself to the far end of the tent, and I was all the way in the back corner. I just listened. Then I started thinking. Those were quick, light footsteps. Those were not human footsteps.

Again, I thought, what did I leave outside? Dog food? Ah, I think I left the can from the meal replacement shake that I had for dinner. Well, that was stupid. Wait, no. I distinctly remember locking that in the trash bag in the car. What is it? Well, this IS bear country. I’d seen them up at the cabin. But the campground didn’t have bear bins or signs. Anyway, I am definitely not getting out of the tent.

The footsteps continued. Then they stopped. Then, it sounded like a zipper was coming undone. It was coming into my tent! Maybe I was wrong! Was it a human? Wait! That’s not a zipper!!!!! That’s not a human! That’s a stream of piss!!! The little bastard is pissing on my tent!!!

It took a split second for that to run through my head, and I pounded on the tent wall. I think/hope it scared the effing creature so much that I didn’t even hear it scamper away. The “zipper” sound stopped and so did the footsteps.

In the morning, I awoke, and sure enough the tent was covered in dew, and there was one spot in the back where the water pattern was just a little different. I rinsed it off with water and attempted the semi-futile effort of trying to fold the genius pop-up tent.

Oh, and I said a special prayer (and by prayer, I mean curse) for the previous occupants of tent site #26 at the Panther Creek State Park campground in Morrisville, TN. For dumping your leftover vegetables in the drainage ditch by the woods, may a thousand raccoons piss on your home. You are truly idiots.