A camping we will go...for some reason

I have to admit, I didn't really understand the whole camping thing.

When I wed my beautiful bride, she wanted to leave our home and sleep on the ground under the trees wrapped in canvass.

I had been working hard for many years to prevent that sort of thing and now I was supposed to do it voluntarily.

Like I said, I didn't really get it, but because I was in love I readily agreed — and the cooler full of adult recreational beverages didn't hurt in convincing me either.

So off we went, leaving our lovely rented apartment behind so we could sleep on the ground like a wild critter.

The first thing I noticed about camping was how much work it was. You had to load everything you needed into a vehicle, drive to the campground, unpack everything, set up the tent, bedding, cooking utensils etc. only to reverse the whole process a few days later.

And don't even get me started on the insects, especially the eight-legged monsters that haunt my dreams when I am in my own bed, let alone sleeping in a sack of stuffed material on a thin layer of foam in the middle of bug central.

Camping actually goes back to biblical times. Moses did it for 40 years. It may not have been by choice, but he still spent four decades pitching a tent and looking for just the right fauna for personal use.

I get tired of camping after just a couple days.

And speaking of fauna for personal use: where the heck did they find fauna in the middle of a desert in the first place? And if there was no fauna, what did they use?

On second thought, maybe I don't want the answer.

Fortunately, provincial campgrounds have bathroom facilities of some sort and what a thrill it is to make a boom-boom in an outhouse.

The most distressing part of the outhouse was the aromatic essence of the structure. Outhouses have a special odiferous quality that just can’t be described without actually experiencing it.

But young love ruled the day, so camping became a regular part of our summers — wooden toilets and all.

The longer we were married, the more our camping evolved. We went from a small, three-person tent to a 10-person tent that was so large it had room for our queen-sized air mattress, baby playpen, luggage, a full basement and in-ground pool.

The tent of wonders eventually gave way to a tent trailer, and not just any tent trailer, the largest tent trailer ever built by the human race.

The thing was so big we dubbed it The Land Whale. With the wings out, it was 26 feet long. In the right light, it could be seen from space.

What an improvement it was. I was no longer a ground-dwelling barbarian, but had an actual bed to sleep in. Camping was still a lot of work, especially with three little ones, but the Land Whale made it a lot more bearable.

My favourite part of camping was sitting around the fire with those adult bevvies I was talking about while the kids slept quietly in their beds.

But it still took many years for me to really enjoy camping.

The change started when I saw how excited my children were to leave our home and head for the hills.

When my son was 18, he said he can't wait to go camping with us and his own family (when he has one).

In that moment, the importance of family camping became clear. Suddenly, I loved camping. What an awesome way to spend a weekend with the family.

Now, if we could just do something about those bugs.  

Copyright 2017, Darren Handschuh

Do you see what I see....probably not

It would seem God gave men and women different eyes.

The mechanics are the same, with retinas and all those other eyeball thingies, but they just don't see the same things.

For example, there can be a few items on the counter and, to a man's eyes, they are just fine where they are, but to a woman they are clutterish (if that is even a real word) and they must be put away — immediately.

A guy can look at the items many times and not see a need to do something with them. That is not to say men are slobs.

OK, some men are slobs, or neatness challenged as the politically correct world calls them, but I am talking about a couple of minor items here.

A woman, or more accurately my wife, can look at a room and see a dozen things that need to be done, changed, moved, cleaned, burned, have an exorcism performed on them or simply left alone.

I can look at the same room and think, Looks good to me.

So how come her eyes can see such a different world than mine do?

Beats me.

However, I have noticed that once we step outside, a role reversal takes place and I start to see things she does not.

Our lawn can be three metres tall with a family of rednecks living in it and she would not see a need to mow the grass. There could be more weed per square foot than Woodstock and she would simply walk by them every single day.

My man eyes, however, see the need to get the motorized lawn chopper out and make the yard somewhat presentable. The weeds, of course, must go, the hedge has to be trimmed, the trees pruned and something must be done with that darned spreading juniper that is attempting to take over the entire front yard rock garden.

“We have a spreading juniper? What's a spreading juniper?”was pretty much my wife's response when I told of the cedar situation that is threatening to create havoc in the entire western hemisphere.

I will show her the bush that is just slightly smaller than an aircraft carrier and she will invariably respond, “Oh, I never noticed it before.”

Funny how that excuse does not work when it comes to a pile of laundry.

“What do you mean you did not notice it? How could you not notice a pile of laundry next to the wash machine behind a closed laundry room door? It's so obvious. Juniper? What juniper?”

Let's just say the yard work has been left mostly to yours truly. Fortunately, I have two big strong sons who willingly jump in and help me with the back 40.

OK, willingly might be a bit of a stretch. I think forcibly is a more accurate description of their helping out with the greenery.

My wife's eyes do notice the gas guage now, which is a good thing. For a while she had a blind spot for that particular vehicular function and I would often jump in the car to go somewhere to find it had less gas than a squirrel fart.

But that's OK, I never quite did get the hang of noticing when we were out of conditioner (Hey, I'm a bald man, conditioner is not a real big concern for me.)

But eyes can be trained. My eyes have learned to notice when the floor needs to be vacuumed, but for some reason I am still somewhat blind to a pile of dirty dishes.

My wife has figured out the gas thing, but for some reason remains oblivious to the plight of the lawn.

Perhaps glasses might help us both.

Copyright 2017, Darren Handschuh

Why do you even ask?

“Why do you even ask?”
I have thought that a lot more than I have said it when it comes to queries from my wife, and it’s a question as applicable now as the day I got married.
I really noticed it during a pre-Christmas shopping outing. My wife and I were looking for items for her step-mom, my mom and sister.
My wife picked up an item for her step-mom and said, “What do you think of this one?”
Examining the sweater I thought, “Ya, that will do,” so I responded accordingly.
“Looks good to me. I think she will like it. The colour is nice.”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t like it.”
She put the item back and kept on shopping.
This happened with the next two items as well, prompting the question, “Why do you even ask?”
After almost three decades of marriage I have learned not to ask that question out loud.
When I did express such sentiment the answer is always something along the lines of “Because I want your opinion.”
Now that is only part of the answer.
The full answer is, “Because I want your opinion which I will immediately disregard and go with what I think will be best unless I am in agreement of course, but thanks for playing along.”
Which brings me back to, “Why do you even ask?”
I could probably say just about anything with the same results.
“What do you think of this one?”
“I think it is perfect. If you do not get it, you are making a colossal mistake, one that will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“No I don’t think so.”
“Right, what I meant to say was it is the ugliest piece of rat cloth I have ever seen and even a beggar wouldn’t be caught wearing it.”
Either answer would typically get the same response, but at least she includes me in the goings on.
I am typically not offended by her inclination to disregard my advice. We both know my main goal when shopping is to get out as quickly as possible, so my answers may be skewed by the fact I am starting to break out in hives and am being overwhelmed by an urge to run like a madman.
My wife, however, has the shopping tenacity of a pitbull.
When she heads into a store it is with a purpose – until she gets distracted.
When men shop, they go in, get what they need and get out.
Browsing? What is the point of that? If I need something all I have to do is find it, buy it and get on with my day.
My wife on the other hand – and I have heard similar tales from my married male friends – will be looking for something and wander off to look at something else.
We can go into a store looking for shoes and she ends up trying on jackets.
“Well, I was heading to the shoe department when I noticed a really nice sweater that was on sale. The colour was similar to my jacket and I got to thinking how ratty it was looking so I decided to check out what other jackets they had…”
This is not her fault, nor is this a criticism of her or any member of the female persuasion. It is just that men think differently. Brain doctors, aka psychiatrists, have discovered men tend to have a more singular focus than their opposing gender counterparts.
With men, each thought has its own little box and being the big, strong guys that we are, we can usually only use one thought box at a time.
Women, on the other hand, can jump from one topic to the other with ease and even integrate topics such as trying on jackets while looking for shoes.
A guy would look at shoes, then, if needed, he would head to the jacket area of the store, his single-thought brain happily switching from shoe mode to jacket mode once shoe mission is complete.
Personally, I can only spend so much time in a department store or mall before my eye begins to twitch and I know it is time to leave or I will lapse into a grand mal seizure.
For my wife, shopping can be an all-day affair, and she will keep trudging through the store until she finds what she wants.
If she can’t find the item by closing time, she heads to the camping department to hunker down for the night.
She joins the myriad of other female shoppers who are setting up tents, digging out sleeping bags and preparing meals in what can only be described as shoppers’ refugee camp.
In the morning, the mass of die-hard shopping aficionados returns to their mighty quest.
Meanwhile, their husbands have fallen into a coma and can be revived only by sitting them in front of a TV – preferably with a hockey game on – and by putting a remote in one hand and a beer in the other.

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Doing laundry with a man brain

After many years of marriage, there are numerous things I have figured out.

Not many of them have to do with women, mind you, because the female brain is a mysterious island shrouded in layers of emotions and thought patterns my man brain just can't understand.

Going into our nuptials, I had a rudimentary understanding of ladies, and now, many years later, I have a slightly increased grasp on the female mind – very slightly.

But even before I was married, I knew how to answer the age-old (and very loaded question) 'Do these make me look fat?'

Gentlemen, the answer is always “No, of course not.”

Even if her butt looks like two Smart cars trying to pass each other on a narrow road, the answer will always be 'No.'

Even our neanderthal fore fathers knew what to say when the little woman asked if the latest in wooly mammoth fashion made her posterior look large.

“No, you look great,” was grunted out lest our slope-headed hero get a brontosaurus bone upside his head.

And don't ever, even jokingly say, “The pants don't make your butt look big, your butt makes your butt look big.”

I cannot even begin to describe just how wrong that answer is.

I have learned the term “Fine, do whatever you want” really does not mean “Fine, do whatever you want,” so I urge my male brethren out there to think very carefully before taking their next course of action.

In fact, just about any sentence that begins or ends with the word 'Fine' means you are in the danger zone.

You have been warned.

There are a lot of other things I have learned, like how to keep the home tidy, I have learned the fine art of making a bed every single morning (why, I am still not too sure as you are just going to mess it up again anyway), I have learned that a man's version of close enough, differs greatly from a woman's version of close enough and I have learned just how vital 300 pillows on a bed are for the continued existence of the human race.

But one thing I still can't figure out is laundry.

My man brain says laundry should be an easy task: whites go with whites, colours with colours and darks with darks.

Simple, right? Wrong.

It would appear laundry is far more complicated. There is white, sort of white, kind of white and not-white-at-all-but-still-goes-in-the-white-pile white.

My man brain did not know any of this when I said “I do.” I should have said “I do, except laundry, because that I don't.”

Despite explaining the fine art of laundry sorting to me several times, I just could not grasp the nuances of the task.

But I think I have a solution: beer.

No, I don't mean men should say forget the laundry and go drink beer, I mean beer companies can come to the rescue of men throughout the free world.

Here is my idea: beer companies can include a chart with each case of beer outlining what type of clothes go in what pile.

It can have a sorting guide, colour chart and most importantly – beer. That way we male types can drink a cool, refreshing bevvy while doing the laundry, which would make us happy and our partners would be happy because we have mastered the art of sorting.

But until that day comes, I have been officially banished from doing laundry because my man version of sorting laundry is not acceptable to my wife's perfectionist brain.

I still fold laundry, because not even I can screw that up.

But when it comes to laundry my man brain is just not up to the task, so I no longer have to sort and wash clothes.

Yup, I sure am dumb sometimes.

Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh

Do you see what I see - probably not.

It would seem God gave men and women different eyes.

The mechanics are the same, with retinas and all those other eyeball thingies, but they just don't see the same things.

For example, there can be a few items on the kitchen counter and to a man's eyes they are just fine where they are, but to a woman they are clutterish (if that is even a real word) and they must be put away - immediately.

A guy can look at the items many times and not see a need to do something with them. That is not to say men are slobs. OK, some men are slobs, or neatness challenged as the politically correct world calls them, but I am talking about a couple of minor items here.

A woman, or more accurately my wife,  can look at a room and see a dozen things that need to be done, changed, moved, cleaned, burned, have an exorcism performed on them or simply left alone.

I can look at the same room and think, 'Looks good to me.'

So how come her eyes can see such a different world than mine do? Beats me.

However, I have noticed that once we step outside a role reversal takes place and I start to see thing she does not.

Our lawn can be three metres tall with a family of hillbillies living in it and she would not see a need to mow the grass. There could be more weed per square foot than Woodstock and she would simply walk by them every single day.

My man eyes however, see the need to get the motorized lawn chopper out and make the yard somewhat presentable. The weeds, of course, must go, the hedge has to be trimmed, the trees pruned and something must be done with that darned spreading juniper that is attempting to take over the entire front yard rock garden.

"We have a spreading juniper? What's a spreading juniper?" was pretty much my wife's response when I told of the cedar situation that is threatening to create havoc in the entire western hemisphere.

I will show her the bush that is just slightly smaller than a 747 and she will invariably respond, "Oh, I never noticed it before."

Funny how that excuse does not work when it comes to a pile of laundry.

"What do you mean you did not notice it? How could you not notice a pile of laundry next to the wash machine behind a closed laundry room door? It's so obvious. Juniper? What juniper?"

Let's just say the yard work has been left mostly to yours truly. Fortunately I have two big strong sons who willingly jump in and help me with the back 40.

OK, willingly might be a bit of a stretch. I think forcibly is a more accurate description of their helping out with the greenery.

Teen eyes are also different than adult peepers ñ man or woman. Human eyes must change over time, because teens do not see things that need to be done inside or outside, and once they enter their bedroom they must go completely blind, but that is another column.

My wife's eyes do notice the gas gauge now, which is a good thing. For a while she had a blind spot for that particular vehicular function and I would often jump in the car to go somewhere to find it had less gas than a squirrel fart.

But that's OK, I never quite did get the hang of noticing when we were out of conditioner (Hey, I'm a bald man, conditioner is not a real big concern for me.)

But eyes can be trained. My eyes have learned to notice when the floor needs to be vacuumed, but for some reason I am still somewhat blind to a pile of dirty dishes.

My wife has figured out the gas thing, but for some reason remains oblivious to the plight of the lawn.

Perhaps glasses might help us both.