August 16, 2007

Confessions from the Carpool

Happy Campers

By Shana McLean Moore
Times Columnist

Whenever I meet a friend for coffee at Almaden Roasting or for a flight of chardonnay at UnWined, I tend to make the extra effort to be recently showered, shampooed and shined. It’s just what we girls do—we make sure all signs of baggage (both emotional and under-eye) are concealed beneath our public façade. It doesn’t take the intervention of Ms. Manners to know this is the polite thing to do.

Yet as necessary as this etiquette is to the maintaining of civilized behavior, I’ve found it’s just as important to spend a weekend pitching a tent with your pals to bond tightly over a weekend of filth and communal living, otherwise known as camping.

There’s just something about seeing your girlfriends unmasked and day-old that fortifies the bonds of friendship. Perhaps this is because camping requires us to “keep it real,” just like Jennifer Lopez when she sang “I’m Still Jenny from the Block.” Well, I suppose my friends and I are still Jamie, Brandy, Wanda, Carrie, Angela, Tracy, Lola and Shana from our respective blocks of Almaden, even though you might not recognize us in the wild without all the spackle and shimmer from our cosmetic bags.

All I know is that for one weekend a year, camping allows my face to look like the starry skies above—a giant canvas of Dot-to-Dot that the kids can use to entertain themselves by tracing invisible lines with their fingertips as they connect the age spots. As long as the kids see the forming of dainty daisies and butterflies, I can leave my emergency tube of concealer tucked inside the first-aid kit. Think what you will of me for hiding some in there, but remember that trauma of any kind falls under the first-aid umbrella. The first time one of them reports seeing the face of a witch, I’ll be 3 inches thick in stage make-up, rolling up my sleeping bag and creating a dust storm as I spin my minivan wheels toward the creature comforts of home.

This leads me to suspect that it’s not so much the Kumbaya moments that tighten our bonds of friendship while camping, but rather some sort of self-preservation instinct that brings us together so that no one will dare whisper about what you looked like without your “face” on. When everyone looks like a day-old bagel on the road to becoming a crusty crouton, it’s easy to band together like a dozen that’s priced to sell.

Truth is, the physical revelations during a camping trip are only half the equation. In addition to sucking every molecule of diva out of a girl, tent cities do a heck of a job showcasing our quirky little neuroses in a way that insulated walls and building codes never could.

For example, our group of friends discovered last weekend that there was a genuine coward amongst us. This person, who appears completely normal when at home sitting on her sofa, refuses to close her eyes while camping out of fear she will lose valuable reaction time should a mountain lion or bear choose her tasty homemade snacks over those the neighboring campers bought at Costco. For the record, this fear gives her… OK, me, a whole new appreciation for the deer of the world. It’s hard to look anything other than wide-eyed and paralyzed when a predator could be lurking just behind the next shrub. Take it from Bambi—my eyes are still burning from the lack of blinking.

If you think humans are the only ones with quirky traits to reveal in the woods, think again. I took particular delight in finding out that my friend’s dog has an extreme fear of the sound of flatulence. How would you ever know such a thing when sitting down to a polite dinner party with friends? But when sitting around a campfire after a dinner of barbecue and baked beans, these things come out…er, up. While we competed to see who could replicate a sound that would make the little guy run off the fastest, we couldn’t help but respect his intelligence. It’s not every dog that has a firm grasp of the principle “If there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

All the laughter did for my cheeks what the sleepless night could never do for my eyes, and I hugged my friends tightly as we said our farewell till we meet again in suburbia. I hope it was understood that my extra tight hug meant equal parts that I enjoyed spending time with them in all the splendor of nature and that if they tell anyone how badly I handled it, I will get even.