Friday, October 26, 2007

Little Writers in the Big Woods: Part 2

The camp owner--whom, I might add, we never laid eyes on again, ever--piled our stuff on an ATV and drove it up to the cabin. Well, most of the stuff. The rest we schlepped in a wheelbarrow.

Correction: Pam schlepped the wheelbarrow. I lugged bags. If someone offered me a significant amount of money I could probably push a wheelbarrow maybe fifty feet. On dry, level concrete. Pam's muscles rippled as she barreled toward the cabin, trudging firmly through grass, trenches, and slippery clay. I followed, whimpering.

After dumping our stuff off and giving us a brief tour, the dude disappeared...and then we discovered
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE INCONVENIENCES.

Unfortunate Inconvenience #1: No running water.

Funny how I assumed an "equipped kitchen" meant we'd be able to twist a faucet and have, well, water. No, we had a water pump which involved--YUCK--which involved walking down to the lake, filling empty milk jugs with amoeba-laced water, lugging them back, pouring them into the pump, and then, well...pumping and pumping till we acquired enough suction to draw water from the well.

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Pamela and her "jugs"

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Pamela pumping water

Notice it's Pam pumping the water, not me. One-handed, no less.

Unfortunate Inconvenience #2: Where the hell is the coffee maker???

Oh, wait. Here it is:

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I think I saw one of these back in 1975.

Guess what? It didn't work.

I cannot. Live. Without. Coffee!

And then, ah yes, we found Unfortunate Inconvenience #3. The worst and most astonishing one of all--and if you're even remotely squeamish, do not read any further:

An outhouse.

Yes, we expected an outhouse.

What we did NOT expect was to see something like this:

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The first words out of my mouth were:

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"OMIGOD! I am SO not going back to Cleveland with f***ing hepatitis!"

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Note: This is NOT a "smile" on Pamela's face.

Pam eyed her leftover gas station tea cup. I eyed her leftover gas station tea cup.

Yep, you guess it. Unfortunate Inconvenience #3 temporarily solved:

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