Hanging Up to Dry

Nick and I cleaned house on Saturday. He worked hard enough that, when we were done, I paid him for the extra help. We call it 'above and beyond.' It looked good.

So now, my house is dirtier than it was on Saturday morning. No. Correct that. My house is messier than it was, not dirtier.

This afternoon, the whole family helped Mike unpack from his weekend training session.

Remember when I was worrying that he was wet? Well, he was wet alright.

There is a four-man tent set up in my den downstairs. It doesn't quite fit, so one end is hiked up onto the futon, which broke while we were cleaning. It just broke. There's a tarp hanging over the curtain rod in the downstairs bathroom. A two-man tent is also there, hooked at various places spanning the room. Stuff bags hang from three door knobs and across the mini fridge in the den. There is another tarp covering the weight machine and a tent's fly across the stationary bike in the den as well. It's the most use those machines have gotten in a month. The other fly is upstairs over the other shower curtain rod. God forbid anyone needs to shower before everything is dry. Damp papers and a couple of spiral bound notebooks clutter the coffee table. Wet clothes smelling of a camp fire lie on the living room floor. Two packs lean against the wall by the stairs. Yup, two packs. It's as if we all went camping this rainy weekend and brought our stuff inside to dry.

We don't have room to unpack the sleeping bags, but I'll wager they're damp as well. I can't just leave them. I'll lay them out over the spare bed, just in case. I hate smelling a moldy sleeping bag.

Mike brought home two wet tents and slept in neither of them, instead sharing a tent with a couple of fellow Scouters. Must have been one of those Harry Potter tents. Mike used one wet tent as a good example and the other as a bad one so that the people could see the proper ways to set up camp. And now we have double the destruction.

Did you know that there were rules about tent etiquette? I guess I learned those things as I went along, common sense stuff about how to keep from setting up your tent in what would become a small pool if it rained. I did that once, you know. Of course it rained. I know what it's like waking up in my own personal pond.

You know, I'm not mad about the mess. I'm getting used to my house being taken over by Scouting equipment. We have also become the proud hosts to a resusci Anne. At least that fits in the shed.

All this stuff will dry. Mike will pack it away, or maybe I will, doing my duties as the Scoutmaster's wife. In the meantime, the den and the downstairs bathroom will be unusable.

I guess that's the price I pay. Clean it up, then clean it up again. Small price. Camping is not an activity that works very well for neat freak wives. Good thing I'm not one.

Thank you for listening, jb