Thursday, September 28, 2006

Troop Pompous Scouts

I was talking with someone at work yesterday about camping for scouts and it reminded me of what a complete ass I made of myself time and time again as a Boy Scout. And don't get me started on the futile attempt the scoutmasters made in their efforts to turn me into a self-sufficient woodsman, when in reality, I was more of a day-hiker-regular-bed-sleeping-non-blackened-food-eating city-dweller. To this day, I don't mind camping as long as I'm not responsible for gathering and packing the necessities--like a sleeping bag or sensible shoes. I seem to always be able to remember to bring chips and yahtzee, but time and again, Margaret and I will have gotten to a camping location and discovered that I've forgotten to bring something--and not some obscure, we-can-make-do-without-it kind of thing, but a we're-gonna-starve-or-die item, like a knife, or maybe matches, or perhaps, God forbid my iPod! Fortunately all our camping has been car camping, where we fold down the back seat of the Jetta and lay out a bed. I love it because we stay dry, warm, and bears and escaped convicts can't get us in our locked car with the alarm activated. And nothing says the great outdoors like being spooned by the gentle curves of German engineering.

Well, back to the scout memories of me being an ass--or at least a pompous twit. One time (I'm using this story just as an example, as there are unfortuantely MANY more similar to it that I could recount. If I told too many of them, though, the Boy Scouts of America national office would probably revoke my Eagle Scout badge--or at least make me retake my knot-tying exam, which I would miserably FAIL!) Anyway, on one scout trip, my best friend and I thought we'd bring expensive, presumptuous food items to make us feel superior to the kids that brought sandwiches and pop. (We hadn't yet learned that we could feel MUCH more superior by simply destroying other's self-esteem... that discovery came a few months later, but we... uh... never used it... really.) We went to the grocery store prior to the campout and carefully selected melba-style bread crackers, brie, some kind of pepper spread, a cheesecake, and bottles of Perrier! What would have been more appropriate on a picnic in the English countryside packed by faithful servants we were bringing on an arduous hike in the dry, dusty trails of backcountry Idaho! Thinking back, I'm just cringe at what we had to have been thinking. Especially since we were Idahoans--it wasn't like we were so sophisticated ourselves. When it came time to pull out our lunches, we made a big deal about our food. I'm sure that most of the other scouts didn't notice, and the ones who did probably didn't even recognize that what we were eating was out of the ordinary. Although I do remember one scout leader from another group from Kamiah, Idaho--a town of maybe 2,500 people--sitting down next to us. We made a big deal about drinking our Perrier, thinking that he'd be impressed because even though we were from the boondocks, he was from the STICKS! His response was, "When I was in France, I stayed at a hotel where you flushed the toilet with Perrier." Huh? What kind of response was that? And was that supposed to be impressive? We just thought he was an idiot (and conveniently ignored the fact that we were acting like idiots, too).

Nowadays, my palate runs the gamut of social strata. I'm just as happy with a Taco Bell soft taco and Diet Coke as I am with a good cheese or a densely layered tiramisu. Although to this day, every time I drink a Perrier, I think of French toilets--one more reason to stick to Diet Coke!

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