Monday, August 09, 2010

Many Kinds of Peril

A month or so ago His Majesty picked up an old pup tent somewhere and set it up in the garden for the kids to play in. Needless to say, it wasn't too long before the older two were begging to be allowed to sleep out overnight in it.

Now, DOB and I have very different feelings about sleeping outside, and not according to gender stereotypes, either. He cannot conceive of why anyone would want to sleep outside, while I grew up in a family where tents were for sissies and where my aunt and uncle have slept outside every night for decades. (Although they live in southern California, so it doesn't quite apply here.)

Anyway, last Friday we finally agreed to let them have a try, and trotted out the requisite amounts of blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and flashlights. Then everyone remembered they hadn't been potty. Then everyone remembered something else they had forgotten.

Then everything got quiet.

Until ten o'clock, when we heard them at the door. D1 was crying because D2 didn't want to sleep outside anymore, and she didn't want to do it alone. So we sat down and discussed why D2 didn't want to sleep outside any more.

Actually, what we discussed, as D2 brought up one thing after another, was the better-known animals of several continents, their level of danger to humans and their likelihood of coming into the tent. Polar bears were perilous, but wouldn't like the heat. Lions couldn't cross the ocean. Bunnies were near at hand, but afraid of humans. So were deer. Slugs were not afraid of humans, but wouldn't like the tent fabric.

Spiders, though . . . there was no denying that spiders might get in. Whereupon D1 began to look relieved that sleeping out was no longer on the agenda.

We put the quilt over the table instead and let them camp out in the living room. As I passed by a few minutes later, I heard a small voice from under the table, "But . . . couldn't we bonk our heads on the table?"

3 comments:

Darren said...

I am SO with D2 on this. I was always part of the exodus from the back lawn to the living room, where there were no strange noises and the cemetery was farther away. :)

Anonymous said...

Must be a different aunt and uncle. Sleeping outdoors here in southern Cali^H^H^H^H Ohio is a one-way ticket to becoming a massive mosquito bite (because of a mass of mosquito bites).

Glad everybody turned out ok-ish, eventually.

Aaron Klein said...

You should immediately call an executive recruiter. You have two high-level risk management executives on your hands who could be pulling down six figures in financial services.

Too bad neither D1 or D2 were working for Citibank or Lehman Brothers a while back...