Unstructions

I am currently sitting in a cushy black office chair on the sidewalk outside of a small auto dealership in South Portland, Maine.  I can hear what is probably a Boeing 757 making its final descent into Portland Jetport, and can smell the tantalizing aroma of french fries and fresh pizza from the shop next door.  Why am I here?  I'm buying a van.  Well, I'm hoping to buy a van.  I think.  Am I?

Remember what I said Wednesday about being a camp spouse?

I get nervous when I'm asked to do adult-ish sorts of things, such as my present task.  I'm a terrible negotiator, respond poorly to confrontation, have trouble changing my wiper blades, and know next to nothing about automotive standards.  As a child, I probably didn't even like to haggle for a later bedtime.  I am clearly the least qualified person who could have been sent on a quest to purchase a used 15-passenger van for our organization.  But in this business, if you have an upturned beach umbrella and a paddle, you might find yourself suddenly sailing around the world for a camper flying into Cape Town.  It's spontaneous at best and unpredictable at worst.  And a whole lot of fun.

So as I sit here and awkwardly survey the sales lot, I am mentally considering purchasing a black 2003 Lincoln Town Car limousine.  You see, I'm also currently in possession of a camp credit card (Dollar Tree shopping spree!!), and there are some vehicles that are starting to look a lot more appealing to me than the white 15-passenger shuttle van that is staring me down from the handicapped spot.  Actually, it's an 11-passenger van.  The reason I'm sunbathing on the pavement is because an employee is running down the back seat that someone thought was irrelevant.  So it's an 11-passenger van disguised as a 15-passenger van.

But no, Mr. Used Car Salesman, you can't pull that trick on me; you'll have to work a little harder.  However, this does make me wonder at how gullible I appear at first glance.  I can just see them in the back room... "Maybe she'll never notice.  Let's take the gas cap, too."

I can't blame them.  Without clear guidance, I'd probably ride an elephant off the lot.

And be happy about it.  I like to call myself a good "life spectator".  Calling it "observing" would imply that I pay attention, and we all know that would be just too much.

If This Trailer's a-Rockin'

You probably thought I was going to write about that.  Ha.  Boy were you wrong.  

I drove for a canoe trip put-in yesterday morning.  Jealous yet?

 This past week, while you may have been barbecuing with friends and going to committee meetings, I've been doing what I do every summer... living the life of a camp wife.  I suppose camp husbands do these sorts of things too, but since I'm a woman, we'll go ahead and be gender specific for now, despite how much I usually hate that sort of thing.

Every summer for the last 6 years, I have been either a staff member or volunteer at a summer camp program that my husband directs, and I still have a hard time verbalizing the exact details of what that nebulous position really entails.  I've plunged an unfathomable number of overflowing toilets, watched a staff member snort spaghetti up their nose and out their mouth (break the noodle and you fail), almost sunk a $40,000 boat filled with teenagers, eaten tubs of camp ice cream, whitewater canoed, pummeled campers with dodge balls (as satisfying as you can imagine) and gotten to hurl myself down a 100' slip and slide every July.  And sometimes, I get paid.  Go ahead and cry a few tears of bitter rage.

Before you throw yourself off of a building, keep in mind that there are some unique environmental requirements for this kind of job life, and it's a mixed bag of privilege and sacrifice.  For example, I am shocked that about a half-hour ago, my iphone got a text message.  Today is my day off this week, and I'm sitting on a sunny porch at camp, where until this year, a friendly cumulonimbus cloud could practically cut all off all of our communication with the outside world.  This is hardly an exaggeration.

If you have read some of my recent posts, you are aware that we now live in a camper here, tucked away in the staff parking lot.  When you shut your eyes and dream of heaven, you probably aren't seeing a 25-foot travel trailer, but I'm telling you, it's a pretty comfortable home base for us.  Starting Monday, we even had a guest, and mercifully it wasn't the local wildlife.  Our friend Amy, who I've mentioned before as being an angel of wisdom and good humor, is sleeping in our bunk beds.

Hey Amy, how's that bottom bunk?

Ironically, since we moved north, we've never lived anywhere without a set of bunk beds.  Either people around here cultivate and harvest children with terrifying frequency and therefore need compact, vertical lodging space, or they just have an affinity for the top bunk.  Either way, Amy's always had a place to stay, even now.  She drew us a picture to hang on our fridge.

Sweet, right? I think know I'm going to frame it.

To sum it up, we live in a house on wheels on the most breathtaking 7,000 acres east of the Mississippi.  And whether I'm wiping down tables in the Dining Hall or scooping way too much ice cream in our coffee shop, I still have to pinch myself every now and again, because something this good just can't last... or can it?  

You mean I could really have free ice cream for life?