All Girls' Camp Out (standard:humor, 2638 words)
Author: Ira L. White	Added: Jan 06 2003	Views/Reads: 3519/2326	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
As a parent, I knew the girls were up to something. Letting them have a camp out was a way of finding out.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


“I will set up the tent in the back yard and we can barbecue hamburgers
and marshmallows.” 

“YES!” screamed the Haddon Four not realizing they had taken the bait
hook, line and sinker. 

“Can Delilah stay with us?” asked Amethyst. 

“Yes,” I nodded. 

The Haddon Four were in the air again. 

“But only if you promise not to keep her dressed up in baby clothes all
night.” 

“We promise,” screamed the girls, happy that they now had something to
look forward to. 

I was happy, too. A good plan in the works proceeding as any good plan
should: towards the goal of greater parental knowledge, was enough to 
make any parent smile. To show my commitment to the sleep out, I went 
out to the enclosed portion of our back porch and dug a large canvas 
bag containing the tent out of a pile of camping stuff. I also dragged 
a couple of sleeping bags from the pile and placed all of the stuff 
just outside the back door. Four pairs of eager eyes watched me. 

“OK,” I said, “We are going to need some more sleeping bags and while we
are at it, we need to call some parents to ask if it is alright with 
them. Tammy and Michelle, get your mom or dad on the phone and then 
hand it to me. I will do all the talking. OK?” 

“OK!” squealed all four girls. 

It only took about fifteen minutes to get parents' permission and extra
sleeping bags rounded up. I put the girls to work (yes, work!) doing 
the dishes and getting the barbecue ready while I set up the tent. One 
of the girls made a large pitcher of “Kool Aide” and filled up extra 
ice trays. By the time they were finished cleaning up the kitchen, I 
had put up the tent. I then packed them all in the car and we drove to 
the store where I picked up some burger buns, hamburger and a package 
of marshmallows. 

By the time we returned from the store, the girls were already feeling
hungry. I started the barbecue while the Haddon Four sliced tomatoes 
and cheese and set up the condiments on the kitchen table. Within an 
hour dinner was served. I tell you there is nothing in this world quite 
as wonderful as seeing a group of kids contentedly munching on burgers 
and sipping Kool Aide. After the main course was finished, we used the 
dying embers of the barbecue to roast a few marshmallows. This proved 
to be a comical event as we only had two long handle forks to cook them 
on and, of course, there is the never-ending debate between those that 
meticulously brown the fluffy white condiments versus the flamers whose 
main interest is in torching them until they are black and crispy. 

After dinner came bath time. Talk about a riot! The Haddon Four squealed
and giggled all through this nightly ritual. There were a couple of 
times that I had to vocally intervene as little squabbles broke out: 
“That's my Hello Kitty bath doll and I want it now!” “No, it's mine!” 
“Stop snapping me with your towel!” I'll bet that there are parents 
reading this who have heard these same words in similar situations. 

After their bath, the girls dressed for bed and went outside to unroll
their sleeping bags. Again there were a couple of squabbles, this time 
about who is going to sleep where. It was beginning to get dark. When 
the bedrolls were set up, a delegation of four girls approached me with 
the usual request for situations such as this: “We need a flashlight so 
we won't be scared of the dark and so we can find the bathroom.” 

I supplied two flashlights hoping that the batteries would see them
through the night. Before the girls turned in, they gathered around me 
as I sat on the back step while I told them a couple of stories. I 
would like to say that they sat before me enraptured by my voice; 
however, it was impossible for me to tell them a story without being 
questioned as to its authenticity. They loved for me to spin my yarns 
for them, and they also loved to wait for the parts that defied their 
sense of logic so they could poke holes in my tall tales. 

At long last it was time to send them into their tent for the night.
They dragged Delilah to the tent interrupting her search for little 
mental morsels that might have been dropped during the cook out. I 
tucked them in and repaired to the house where I popped open a beer and 
sat in my chair in the living room sipping it until I felt the time was 
right to do what I had been planning all along. After all four had come 
in waving the flashlight on their way to the bathroom, I figured the 
time was getting very close. I turned out the lights in the house as if 
I had gone to bed and waited for a half hour. 

It was now very dark. The girls were giggling with an occasional, “Stop
that!' or “No!” Then the conversations became quiet. I could hear them 
talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying. My experience 
told me that when they began talking low, that was the time to be 
listening to everything they said. 

In order to better hear their conversation, I lowered myself to the
ground and wriggled through the grass on my stomach. Carefully and ever 
so slowly I crawled toward the tent. A picture of me as a man snake 
sneaking up on four unsuspecting girls entered my mind and I had to 
suppress a giggle. 

“What was that?” questioned an alarmed voice from inside the tent. 

“Shhh! There it is again.” 

I stopped, holding my breath. Everything I had done could be undone in a
moment should they discover good ol' Dad sneaking up on them. 

“I think you're hearing things,” said another voice. 

It was then that I heard the dog growl a deep, low growl as if she was
getting ready to go into her protection mode. I remained frozen in 
place my face turning blue from lack of oxygen. The girls remained 
quiet for several minutes. I could picture their faces intently focused 
on listening for any sign that something was creeping up on them. At 
last Delilah settled down and they began to talk again. I moved 
forward, inching my way to the edge of the tent. From there I could 
intercept every whisper from inside. 

“My daddy is the best,” Amethyst said quietly. 

“Yeah, your dad is OK,” agreed Michelle. 

I covertly listened with interest, gathering in these compliments like
ripe grain from the field. But this wasn't what I had gone through all 
this trouble for. It took several more minutes of casual conversation 
before the words I wanted to hear were spoken. 

“Have you asked Angela if she can baby sit?” Chrysalis inquired. Angela
lived two blocks down and one block over from us. She was fifteen and 
had recently hung out her shingle as a neighborhood sitter. 

“Yes, and she can,” answered Michelle. 

“She got to baby sit me last weekend,” offered Tammy. 

“Did she let you do what you wanted?” asked Amethyst. 

“Yes, I would rather have Angela than any other baby sitter in the
world,” Tammy testified emphatically. 

“I'll bet she isn't like that old witch, Elsie,” Chrysalis spat the
words out as if they made her mouth taste bad. Elsie was an elderly 
lady, a retired nurse I employed to watch the kids when I had business 
to tend to. She was from the old school of nursing and the even older 
school of child rearing. I could be sure that the girls were in line 
when she sat them and I found her to be a very nice lady, though I knew 
she was strict with the children. 

“Yeah,” agreed Amethyst. “She's a witch all right.” 

“She looks like a wrinkled old prune,” said Chrysalis and all the girls
giggled. 

My stomach growled and my hands began to sweat as I continued listening
hoping that my stomach hadn't given me away. The information I had been 
seeking would pop out any minute. I felt like the gold miner who just 
knew he was one shovel away from the Mother Lode. 

“You know what she makes us do?” Amethyst said in a louder, more
insistent voice. 

“What?” Tammy was the one who bit on this one. 

“She makes us gargle with hydrogen peroxide!” said Amethyst vigorously
and with a great deal of disgust. I could visualize her little mouth 
screwing up in disgust as she spat out the words. 

“UUUGGGH!” The two visiting girls were clearly grossed out. Elsie had
told me of this recipe for cleaning out the mouth of unwanted bacteria. 
I had told her it was OK, but I found that only she had the stern magic 
to actually get them to do it. 

“If we could just get Dad to let us have Angela as our sitter,”
Chrysalis said wishfully. 

“He won't do it unless Elsie can't or won't.” Amethyst's voice had a bit
of bitterness to it along with the sureness of one who has sized up the 
situation from all angles. 

“Well, if he won't let her sit us when we ask him, we could play some
tricks on Elsie until she gets tired of watching us,” Chrysalis 
offered. 

“You could tell your dad that Angela is older than she is,” whispered
Michelle. 

“My mom could tell your dad she is a good sitter,” said Tammy. 

At that point, my nose began to itch. I cursed myself for not having
mowed the lawn this week. The Bermuda grass was headed out and I was 
allergic to the pollen. The itch began to turn into a sneeze. Knowing 
that my being discovered would really mess things up and having gained 
valuable intelligence on what was surely going to transpire in the near 
future, I held in my sneeze and quietly crawled back to the porch. I 
crept inside the house and quickly made for the bathroom where I let 
out the mother of all sneezes. Thankfully, I had been able to make it 
wait. 

I now held the information on the kid's plans in my mind. I would sleep
on it and wake up in the morning with a counter plan. Elsie would be 
consulted as she was deeply involved. When you are a parent, knowing 
what your kids are up to is half the battle of raising them. I drifted 
off to sleep that night comfortable in the knowledge that I had managed 
to stay one step ahead of the children yet fearful of the day they 
would outmaneuver me. 


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