So I'm like....not a very outdoorsy person. I don't do well when it's hot outside, I just melt into a puddle and complain about the heat as I sweat to death. Cold I can handle as long as I can bundle up but I've been ice fishing and that was my worst cold nightmare so I need something to block the raw wind or else I'll just complain about how cold it is. I like nature, but from a distance; bugs are one of my biggest phobias, no matter if it's spiders or ants or centipedes or whatever. I also sunburn super easy regardless of if I put sunscreen on or not.
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As such, it isn't hard to imagine I don't go camping much. When I was young my grandparents had a RV and we went to the Disney campgrounds a few times but even back then I refused to stay in a tent and stayed in the RV and we were only at the campgrounds really to eat and sleep because hey, we were at Disney so let's go enjoy that stuff. When my grandfather passed we went a few times but we stayed at the cabins so it wasn't really 'camping'. I went camping with a friend and they'd borrowed the RV from her aunt and uncle who had one, and my father for a short time had basically a RV converted into a trailer at a stationary campground where I went a few times in my life.
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But by far my worst camping experience ever was the one time I had to stay in a tent. Again, I don't go camping much. I don't generally like it, I'm more comfortable in a temperature-controlled (at least to a degree) home with easy access to my computer and phone. I can shower whenever I want, I don't get hot and sweaty and sunburnt, and as my family has never been understanding of anything about me it's obviously stressful and anxiety-inducing to be around them without being able to turn to the people online to help me feel like I'm not alone and that everything will be okay.
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Despite all of this, when I was a teenager my father forced me to go camping with him, my stepmom and stepsister. My parents were divorced, of course, and he had me for a weekend so when he picked me up on Wednesday night for dinner like usual he told me to pack for camping that weekend. I told him I wasn't going, I pitched a fit, I begged my mom to find any excuse to keep me from him that weekend. But neither parent would be swayed, so I had no choice except to go. I packed long sleeved everything despite it being summer, I didn't pack a swimsuit because no way in the nine hells was I going to swim in some dirty pool at the campgrounds. Half my bag was legit insect repellent in some form - spray, built in to the sunscreen, candles, those little fan things you carry on you, all that jazz. I was not going to get eaten alive by flies and mosquitoes and whatever else was out there.
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And, of course, my father lied to me. He told me they had some kind of RV or other mobile home I could sleep in so I didn't have to sleep in a tent. But we drove his convertible out there, and there was no sign of such a thing on the campground spot when we got there. I refused to help set up the tent and my stepsister was just as displeased about all of this as I was (she had made plans to hang out with friends that weekend and been informed only basically the day before that they were going camping and like me tried everything to get out of it but to no avail) so she wouldn't set the tent up either. She also hated camping and the outdoors as much as I do, and had been told we'd have a solid structure to sleep in and been lied to. So we were both pissed beyond belief and my dad had to set up our tent because we just would not.
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After a miserable Friday evening we went to bed in our tent, but not before trying to convince my dad to let us sleep in his car and failing with that. I woke up first on Saturday morning and promptly screamed bloody murder, as I could see the outside of our tent was absolutely covered in quarter sized spiders. I started to panic and make sure there was none on me or in the tent, waking my stepsister as well who promptly screamed along with me. My father came over to try and help but only managed to open the tent flap to see if we were okay and let several spiders in to the actual tent.
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I pushed him over in blind panic trying to get away, though thankfully I did not hurt him, and I made it to near the car before I leaned over and coughed up a whole bunch of stomach acid because that was all I had in me. I was screaming and crying and drawing attention from nearby campers while my stepsister cursed worse than a sailor and screamed at my dad and stepmom (her mom) about how it was f-ing stupid they'd dragged us out camping and she wanted to go home. My dad tried to convince my stepmom, but she was a nasty woman who yelled at him about how her daughter just needed a good spanking to put her in line and if my father was smart he'd do the same to me and us not wanting to be there wasn't going to ruin the experience for her. Of course she wouldn't dare touch my stepsister in public, though I'm sure she got a good spanking as soon as we got home on Sunday but that's another story.
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Unable to go home because my dad was always cowed by my stepmom and did whatever she wanted no matter what I wanted to call my mom to come and get me but was forbidden to do so. It was, legally speaking, my father's weekend and barring a medical emergency my stepmother was not going to let me 'misbehave' and get to go back to my mother for it so even if she wanted to come and get me (which believe me, she wouldn't want to because she thought it was good for me to 'get outside') she couldn't. But my dad at least had some mercy and allowed me to stay in the car with the windows cracked after he parked it in a shadier place. He brought me breakfast once I'd calmed down and I ate, but otherwise I stayed in the car with my Gameboy and refused to leave unless I had to go to the bathroom.
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My stepmother found this out the hard way - she tried to make me come and sit with everyone for lunch and I promptly vomited all over her chest and legs as soon as I left the car. One of the few times my dad stood up for me against her that I can remember, he refused to punish me for puking on her and told her to leave me alone. So I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in that car, including sleeping in there Saturday night, and I went back to my mom on Sunday night. I told her that if she ever tried to take me camping she would have to forcibly pick me up and drag me out of the house because no way was I going through all that again.
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As an adult now, I don't think I could go tent camping anyway. I have hip issues and sleeping on no-padded surfaces makes me wake up stiff and sore and unable to walk for at least an hour. I have severe achilles tendinitis so all the walking and the like associated with camping is something I'm not physically able to do. And I still hate extreme temperatures and bugs, and prefer to stay inside where I can not sweat or freeze to death and don't have to worry about bugs and animals and the weather being dumb.
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I've been a lot of places, done a lot of things, and I'm interested in a lot of stuff. I want to do articles like this more often, probably as a weekly Friday post. If you want to ask questions or suggest topics for future articles please do so in the comments. And if you'd like to see all the topics I've covered so far and the suggestions that I have received but just haven't gotten around to yet you can check here. I just ask that you be respectful with your suggestions, but beyond that I am an open book and will write about anything you guys are interested in hearing about.