we used to go camping a lot. every single weekend my brother and his girlfriend who was also my best friend but only she was my best friend before she was his girlfriend and i didn’t even know they were dating for a big long time because they were hiding it from me. but that’s a whole other sordid story for another time. i’m telling you all this because you’re dying to know.

so the three of us and my boyfriend and a few other random friends would gather some food and supplies and go to whatever pick a name campground for the weekend.

sometimes, it wasn’t even a real campground. we would just drive in the direction of the mountains and trees and stop in a little clearing somewhere near some water. we were like modern day magellans forging a path into new and unchartered territory. and plus, we didn’t want to pay fees or be bothered by park rangers. and sometimes, we wouldn’t even gather food and supplies. we would arrive at the clearing in the trees and realize that no one bothered to bring anything edible. there we were with a box full of coffee grounds, forks and a can opener, but not a hot dog in sight.

but we never forgot the beer.

needless to say, things got ugly at times. let me tell you this, because i think it’s important that you know: men can be so stupid when they’re drunk. i say this because i’ve seen it. first hand. typically, my best friend and i were the only girls on these little campouts. this is because both my brother and my boyfriend at the time had friends who were total losers and therefore, did not have girlfriends. no girlfriend means sleeping in your tent alone. this also means that we were outnumbered at times 5 to 1. so it was our great joy to sit around the campfire while they talked and lied and argued about sports and superheroes and the space-time continuum and got so drunk they forgot who they were. we watched them get into fights in which lawn chairs were thrown in the fire. and then they tried to fish it back out. with their bare hands. then a fist fight broke out over who was going in after the chair. literally over the fire. as in, they were jumping back and forth across the fire grabbing each other. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

i’m sure you’re sorry you missed this.

as you can imagine it wasn’t always the safest place for two girls to be alone with a bunch of drunk guys. but we were careful. we weren’t really all that into the drinking. watching them was way more fun. we would pretend that we were drinking but when their backs were turned we would pour half the bottle out and go back to pretending like we were tipsy and slurring our words. by the end of the night we could go back to being sober and sane again because they’d be so wasted we’d be dragging them by their collars to the tent, completely comatose and muttering something about GI Joe beating Superman in a game of golf played on the moon in bubblejets.

those were the good old days.

on the way home from one of these trips my boyfriend was driving and i was laying with my head against the window, my feet in his lap. my brother was sitting in the backseat with his girlfriend’s head in his lap. everyone was quiet and we had the radio going. the sun was shining in. the scenery was gorgeous. we were all tired from a weekend of swimming and fishing and partying. my boyfriend looks out the window and sees two cows in a pasture, going at it. biblically. he says, “well, HE’S gettin’ some!” and then, all of a sudden, emilia’s head pops up out of the backseat and she starts screaming. “OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. JAY. OH MY GOD. I’M SO EMBARRASSED. YOU SAID THEY COULDN’T TELL! OH MY GOD!”

and we’re just looking at each other like, wtf? until we realize that she had been giving him head in the backseat and thought that my boyfriend had been talking about my brother being the one who was getting some. then we all nearly died in a horrible car crash because we were laughing so hard at the hilarity of it all. we tortured her for the next four years by going, “MOOOOOO” every time she entered a room. she’d yelped, “AGH!” and run out again beet red and horrified.

my point is, the thing you have to understand, some people got some crazy eyes. what is UP with that???