Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

(Aside from Copius Amounts of Patience)

By Professor Popinjay

[Disclaimer: This article is in no way endorsed, funded, or sponsored by the Frito-Lay company. Any mention of Frito-Lay products is purely circumstantial and in no way implies Frito-Lay’s congruence or agreement with the ideas and opinions expressed in this article aside from the opinion that you should definitely purchase and eat many Frito-Lay products… but mostly purchase.]

“Roughing it” as the saying goes, should not involve transporting all the luxuries of home to the wilderness. Transporting 5 children of varying ages to the wilderness however can be rough beyond even the most experienced camper’s threshold.

A few luxuries might be a welcome trade-off in the long run. Don’t worry, the amount of work you personally will have to do in order to keep everyone else happy and comfortable won’t be too far off from “roughing it” anyway. Everybody wins with this list of luxuries you’ll be glad you lugged to the campsite.

Seating:

If you think everyone will have their own stump perfectly positioned around the campfire you’re dreaming, pal! And picnic table benches are comfortable for nanoseconds. Unless you want your kids sitting in poison oak, comfortable chairs are a must. The camping chairs that open and fold like the roof of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium only cost half as much (as the roof did) and are light enough you’ll be able to hoist all six of them to the campsite with ease.

That’s five chairs for the kids and one for the dog. Don’t bother bringing one for yourself or your spouse. You two aren’t going to be sitting for the duration of this trip.

Incidentally, the kids aren’t going to use the chairs either, but they’ll complain if they don’t have them.

Sleeping Bags:

Some camping blogs advise kid-sized sleeping bags with colorful characters printed on to beguile the youngsters into safe feelings while they sleep in the razor-sharp-clawed bear-infested Trees-R-Us, separated only by a thin sheet of nylon fabric. Poppycock! Don’t waste your money on sleeping bags! That’s exactly what Big Sleeping Bag wants you do!

Did you know they (gnomes) use a machine to roll new sleeping bags up and fit them into those impossibly small outer bags? They roll them up with a ratchet winch, suck all the air out and cram them into a quantum singularity with a hydraulic press powerful enough to turn charcoal briquettes into diamonds. Then they have the audacity to insinuate you could do this with your own bare hands. It’s the greatest practical joke of all time. Don’t fall for it!

Why does it even need to be a bag? What’s wrong with their blankets at home? You’re going to have to take all this crap to the laundromat anyway. A fold here, a wrap there, apply some nylon straps and your kids’ll be snug as a bug in a rug. No one is saying the straps have to be tight but that does prevent them from any night-time foraging while you’re in your own separate tent, nestled into the loving arms of a three-levels-deep subconscious dream state. 

Plus those straps double as convenient handles when you need to grab the kids and vamoose quick-like in the event of the annual wildfires. (I live in Oregon. Wildfires is one of the two seasons we have here. The other is rain.)

Another thing camping blogs insist on are air mattresses. You’re already tired, now they want you to be out of breath too? What’s next, hammering tent pegs into the ground with our face? Hand pumps and foot pumps are no less exhausting. The best way is to make a game of it. Whichever kid whines the most gets appointed to official inflation duty. I don’t care if they fill them with spray cheese and farts, so long as it gets done.

Flashlights:

Giving your kid a flashlight implies you’ve given them permission to move around at night. Don’t make that mistake. The fear of darkness is not only natural and healthy, it keeps your kids where they’re supposed to be: in their separate individual tents.

Instead of a flashlight which requires costly batteries and attracts insects possibly carrying malaria (or worse: tickets to a Cardi B concert), just tie a lead from their tent to the toilet sack positioned away from the camp. A cowbell on the line being klangered every so often lets you know they’ve not been lost to Perdition.

Backpacks:

This is a whole ‘nother bag o’ worms and hopefully not literally. If you love your children, do not trust them to pack for themselves. If you think they’re going to pack anything of use to them for this trip, you should probably inform your therapist you’re having delusions of grandeur.

Here is what they will likely pack:

-Action Figures (to lose in the lake)

-Two or more globes (possibly of Earth but not necessarily, to use as a map in case they get lost)

-Six coloring books (but no crayons) OR 146 crayons (but no coloring books)

-One sock belonging to a sibling

-A pair of underwear (from the back of their drawer which they’ve not worn since they were toddlers)

-Toys for the cat you thought you left at home.

-The cat

-15 masonry bricks (seemingly)

-A tiny bag of Cheetos (packed beneath the bricks)

Here is what they’ll actually need:

-15 masonry bricks

-A MASSIVE bag of Cheetos.

Obviously kids won’t need the action figures. Wherever you’re going is sure to have natural toys laying all over the place. I’m referring to the ever present plaything that trumps expensive molded plastic every time: STICKS! God made guns and swords grow out of the ground for you to play with! Now go pretend to kill each other in preparation for your bleak apocalyptic future. That’s the whole reason we go camping!

The globes may prove enjoyable if they’re inflatable… during the 35 second window they remain inflatable. A half inflated globe is a wholly comfortable pillow. Remember, have the whiny kid blow them up.

Coloring books could be used to start fires (specifically campfires but really any fires as needed. Tis the season!) and the crayons could be broken into path markers as the children delve into uncharted woodlands towards gingerbread cottages or whatever. More than likely they’ll find a clever leprechaun who will cover the forest with his own broken crayons anyway, so you may as well leave these things at home. As for starting fires, just use the kids’ guns and swords.

That sock and the underwear are also highly flammable, perhaps dangerously so. If you have these, you might not even need matches.

Let’s be serious though. The kids aren’t going to change their socks or underwear until they get home and perhaps not even then. Are we sure they ever started wearing underwear in the first place? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. Moving on.

Should you happen to find your family cat in your child’s backpack just leave her in there. Trust me,  she’ll prefer it. Toss in a fish every once in a while and she’ll think she’s in heaven. I’m certain a claustrophobic enclosure of masonry bricks and Cheetos where someone hands them a whole fish everyday is exactly how cats would describe Heaven.

Honestly, the only thing in that bag your child needs is the Cheetos… and possibly the bricks.

The bricks are infinitely useful. They can form a fire pit, stepping stones in muddy campsites, or build a sound barrier around the head of a snoring spouse. I got that idea from master woodsman, Edgar Alan Poe!

The Cheetos will be your child’s sole source of nourishment. They won’t eat fish. If anything, you should probably pack MORE Cheetos. Fill their backpack! The cat will thank you. Cats hate free space.

One camping blog suggested packing a “Nature Exploration Kit” for your kid. I have no idea what would constitute a Nature Exploration Kit, but I do know this: it definitely constitutes the most useless suggestion I have yet encountered. Trust me, bricks and Cheetos. That’s all you need.

NOW GIT!