“I think we just bought a camper”. I believe that might have been the most frightening sentence my husband had ever said to me. Now, we had been looking at them for a while, but not seriously. I knew we couldn’t afford one. And if I thought we couldn’t afford it, certainly my husband, the accountant would be on the same page. We had been to A LOT of used camper dealers (I don’t know what they’re called) looking them over. I was even getting pretty good at what to look for. Soft flooring, spots on ceilings, anything that would show signs water damage. I was pretty proud of myself. But I knew we couldn’t afford what we wanted and what we could afford was going to have damage.
Now, I didn’t grow up camping. AT ALL!! We just didn’t do it. I didn’t grow up doing outdoor things. My brothers were hunters, but they were older and as far as I know they didn’t hunt until they were living on their own.
The only time I had camped was when I was a teacher in Florida. They needed some of us to chaperone for the 6th grade camping trip. I was the Music Teacher so I knew the kids. The teacher said, “They love you Stacey, it will be fun”. So, I went camping with the 6th grade class in the Everglades National Forrest. When we went on the night hike the ranger gave the adults flashlights with a red shield over it. While we were hiking she told us if we were quiet we might be able to see a Florida Panther. Yeah, I was the loudest person there! When we got to the water, the ranger told us to shine the light on the water. There were all these red dots on the water. She told us that was the alligators. We slept in tents that night! I was never so glad to get home in my life!
But I digress. Actually my husband and I had been camping a few times in the small Shasta that we had. It was a 1966 Shasta and only one of us could stand at a time. When you put his son into the mix, it was a very tight squeeze. It was a good thing we all liked each other. I also went camping with the Cub Scouts once. It was better than the Everglades I’ll tell you that. Plus, we had an air mattress.
Now I am the proud co-owner of a camper that my husband bid on sight unseen on EBay. It was only a year old and one owner and it appeared that they had only used it a few times before it was repossessed. It was one of those deals that my husband felt that it was too good to pass up, and I agreed. But if you knew my husband you would still have been as shocked as I was that we bought it. I love my husband, but I really need to buy the T-Shirt I saw that said “Can you fix my husband, he always says he’s broke”.
