Thick Layers of Blood Sucking Insects
May,
2004 Written by L at Age 12
Every year since I was just a little
boy, my father told me that we would go camping in the summer, and every year
since I was just a little boy, we have stayed home during the summer. In the
summer after my sixth grade year at Brookside Elementary, my dad told me that
we were going to go to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a camping trip.
Now for those of you who are not
familiar with the Outer Banks, you must know that it is a beautiful place to
look at from a distance. Let me attempt to describe it to you. Try to imagine
living in a gigantic oven right next to the largest pool of water on the
planet. You’re extremely thirsty and all you want to do is drink some of that
water; but, you can’t because if you do, you’ll end up getting a large mouthful
of salt. Now think about going inside your small tent (which is even hotter
than outside) and being attacked by thousands of mosquitoes because one of the
camp members never closed the tent flap.
Of course, when my dad told me we
were going to the Outer Banks, I just kinda shrugged it off. Why would this
year be any different than last year? I asked myself. After a while though, my
mom started to get excited about going. “Oh, you’ll love it,” she told me. “Me
and your dad used to go there all the time before you were born.”
Now I was starting to get excited. (I
was told that it was a wonderful place to camp, I was not warned like you have
been). So once everybody was packed and ready to go, we left home and headed
out to North Carolina
Part of camping is the trip to the
campground, and lord forbid you fly to your destination! Oh, no my friends, you
have to drive there. So now we have a 12 year old who’s just starting to rebel
against his parents stuffed in the back seat of a Toyota Rav 4 being forced to
listen to an Avril Lavigne CD over and over again. (I now have the ability to
sing along with every song on her CD Let Go). As you can imagine this was
not fun especially for ten straight hours.
Once we got there, it was pretty fun.
The first thing we did was hit the beach. We had brought along a couple boogie
boards so it was pretty hard not to have fun. So far we were having a great
time until night came. I had heard stories of thick swarms of ravaging
mosquitoes on the beach; but I had disregarded them. When we got back to our
tent, we found that we had forgotten to close the flap. What we found inside
was absolutely horrendous. The ceiling of the tent was lined with a thick layer
of bloodsucking insects. It took us over an hour to completely rid the tent of
the little beasts.
The next morning I decided I was
going to go for an early stroll across the beach. I had no problem getting
there because the beach was right behind the campsite. It was getting back that
I had some problems with. There is a rule that you should follow when going to
the beach. Always pick out a landmark to help you find your way back home. I did
this. For my landmark I picked a sign that read
No Trucks On
Beach
Under Penalty of Law
It
wasn’t until I had walked for about twenty minutes that I realized there was a
sign that read
No Trucks On
Beach
Under Penalty of Law
about every twenty feet or so. So I ran back down the beach
until I came to a place that looked like where I had come from. I walked over
the hills that I was sure would lead me to my campsite. Well, instead of a
campsite, I found myself in a field of odd looking flowers. I started to cross
the field hoping it would lead me to some place of familiarity. Once I was half
through, the field of flowers had grown so thick that I could not avoid
stepping on them. After stepping on them, I really wished I hadn’t. They turned
out to be small cacti.
So I pushed on down the field of
cacti until I came to an outhouse. Not any outhouse; my camp’s outhouse. I
started to leap for joy until I landed on another cactus, which pretty much
just ruined the moment. I had finally made it back to the camp for another long
night of mosquito killing.
The next day we went home. My parents
were sad to leave but I was leaping (carefully) for joy.
To this day I refuse to do anything
with my parents.
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