This is roughing it. I know that the settlers of the 1600’s would disagree, but to me camp is definitely roughing it.

But for some reason, I absolutely love Camp Michigamme with all my heart. The bug bites I get at camp don’t seem to itch as much as ones I get elsewhere, and my sleeping bag is pretty heavy. Trying to play Euchre at midnight on four hours of sleep and eight cans of pop is much funnier than Chandler Bing’s snappy come backs and Phoebe Buffay’s ditzy antics, and there aren’t any commercials. I’ve battled far worse stalls at school. I don’t necessarily have to go into the lake (depending on how nice my co-counselors are during swim hour). There are forty some other weeks of the year that I can hit the Port Plaza Mall. I can live without take out for a week at a time. And about the bell waking me up at six in the morning (my time) ………………. well, I still hate that, but it’s a small price to pay to be at camp.

For all those people who are now laughing at me for thinking that summer camp is in the dictionary under the phrase ‘roughing it’ allow me to explain my little roughing it problems………

What is the deal with mosquitoes? There is no other place on this earth that has as many mosquitoes as Camp Michigamme. What is it, a resort for them? A Kathie Lee Carnival Cruise? The mosquito version of Disneyland?

"Mr. Mosquito, you’ve just won the bug Super Bowl. What are you going to do now?"

"I’m going to Camp Michigamme!"

Why is it that when you douse yourself in bug spray---so much so that nobody will come within twenty feet of you---you still get bitten? And who invented bug dope? Did they mean for it to smell like that? Why hasn’t someone come up with Lemon Lime Bug Spray or Tootie Frutie Off? You know, so you don’t gag when you smell someone wearing it.

You know what one smell to avoid if possible is? Ten different brands of bug dope mixed with campfire smoke. That is one nasty smell especially if someone’s waving a banana boat four inches away from your face.

Maybe the point of bug dope is that no bug will come near anything that smells so bad. The only thing is, no person will come near anything that smells so bad either.

When I go to bed at camp I am roasting. It is so hot in those cabins, you’d think it was a summer in Mexico instead of the UP. But when I wake up, I can’t feel my toes and my lips are blue. What is the cause of this? And the ground is always wet even when it doesn’t rain. Is that dew? Extra strength dew.

I admit that I am a televisionaholic. I need to know if Josh is staying with Annie or leaving her for Reva and if the punchlines to the jokes on Murphy Brown are funny during a certain episode. And don’t mess with me from eight to eleven (seven to ten central time) on Thursday. I am busy watching Monica and Ross’s friends, Jerry’s battles with the Soup Nazi, and Nurse Hathaway dealing with the E.R. patient who thinks he’s a werewolf. I watch Early Edition for its clever storylines and interesting characters, not just for Kyle Chandler. Well, okay, yeah, for Kyle Chandler. David Letterman is a must, at least up until the top ten list and stupid pet tricks.

I don’t like missing my TV shows. Luckily, summer is a great time for reruns, so I don’t miss much which is okay because it’s bad for me anyway.

I was at camp for a week last summer, and the only television I watched was one episode of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno down at Lakefront. I had been even worse than usual about couch potatoing it, too, because the Olympics had been on the weeks before. I think they were still going, and I missed them. I didn’t like that. You cannot catch the Olympics in rerun unless you buy an overpriced "best of " video.

My parents tease me that I chose the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay over U of M because there are large bathrooms in every dorm room at UWGB and one disgusting cubical that I suppose could be called a bathroom (in another life) at the end of the hall in Michigan’s dorms. I always laugh and jokingly say, "Yes, that’s how I chose a college."

The thing is, deep down, they might not be that far off.

I cannot stand not knowing whose rear end has been on a toilet before mine. I don’t think I’ve ever actually made contact with a school toilet seat. When we travel seven hours downstate to my grandparents’ house, I rarely make the best of gas station rest stops. Oh, I get a pop and candy and sometimes even a magazine, but I do not set foot inside the bathroom unless it is a life or death situation. I have never even opened the door to one of those blue portable things they have at Gus Macker for the simple reason that I know I will not use it.

I do not trust motel bathrooms. I’ve seen too many Datelines in which the topic was "How one woman caught a gross disease from a Ho Jo bathroom," "They video taped a family of four in their own motel bathroom," or "Think your four star motel bathroom has been properly cleaned? Think again." I use the bathroom in motels as little as possible, and when I do I grab half a dozen of those flimsy seat covers out of the dispenser next to the kleenexes.

To me, sharing a bathroom with anyone outside of my immediate family and our guests is definitely roughing it. Camp bathrooms are better than what I’ve mentioned so far. They are actually clean and at least a person knows the people who they are sharing with. I still have my communal bathroom obsession, though. It’s just icky.

I don’t like lake water. It’s not that I am prejudice towards Lake Michigamme. It’s any lake that I don’t like. I think this apprehension of lakes began because I live on a street appropriately called Crystal Lake Boulevard. This is appropriate because Crystal Lake Park, Crystal Lake soccer field, and just plain old Crystal Lake is across the street.

Crystal Lake isn’t very crystal. It should be called Garbage Lake or Junk Lake or Filthy Lake. People dump everything from bottles to old tires in Crystal Lake. I’ve seen paper, glass, plastic, rubber, and everything imaginable in that lake.

There is an observation deck that overlooks Crystal Lake. People are supposed to go there for the beautiful view. Guess who really goes there? Punks who carve swears and disgusting messages into the wood and drug dealers making their exchanges. I am not joking. The observation deck of Crystal Lake is the prime place for drug dealers. The police have been there on more than one occasion. Besides, I’ve seen their druggie equipment in the lake.

So I am very leery of lakes in general. My golden rule is this: Swimming is a great activity if there is a sauna, hot tub, and guy handing out towels within the vicinity. Otherwise, proceed with the utmost of caution.

I have this radar inside me that most teenage girls also have. It is a mall detector. Once I get more than sixty miles away from a mall, I panic. I am not a shopaholic. I am not on the cutting edge of fashion. This is not my life. But, to me, malls symbolize civilization. I don’t mean the wannabe malls that that are so popular in the UP which consist of three stores in the same general area. I am talking two stories of dozens of stores and a food court. Marquette and Escanaba have some of these. Iron Mountain is very close to one. If we took our three ‘malls’ and stacked them on top of each other, we’d have a real mall. I consider these three combined centers a mall. The only difference between Iron Mountain’s mall and real malls is that you have to drive a couple miles to get from the CD store to JC Pennys.

Camp is not near civilization, and that can be scary sometimes. Sure, there’s Champion, but that shouldn’t even be considered a town. Two general stores and a church do not make a town. They make the Old West.

I miss fast food when I go to camp. I could live off-take out. I need pizza at least once a week and hamburgers as in greasy, flat, full of fat hamburgers from McDonalds. I have to have salty fries that have that fast food smell. I need China Gardens and Romagnoli’s Italian and the Blind Duck. Hardee’s breakfasts are a must (if you soak the grease off the hashrounds).

But I can overlook all these things. I can rough it a little. It is that bell that gets me every morning……………………

I’m sorry, but Jeremy and Pete do not know how to rough it.

At camp I have to sleep on a too soft mattress in a bed that squeaks like mad when I lift my little finger a quarter of an inch. I have to listen to children snore and talk in their sleep, and all the time I am praying that some kid doesn’t roll out of their top bunk.

Do you know what Pete and Jeremy sleep in? Waterbeds. At summer camp. There is no such thing as waterbeds at summer camp. There should be a law. This is not roughing it. What is next? Craft-o-matic adjustable beds? Sertas? Those beds for little kids that are in the shape of a car or Barbie dreamhouse?

Do you know what else Pete and Jeremy have in their cabin? A television set and a VCR. Not fair. Come Friday morning, they know the lyrics to Phoebe’s Smelly Cat song and which zoo Ross and Joey got Marcel into. Guess what I know Friday morning? Which camper puked up her three S’mores and who doesn’t have any flashlight batteries left. That’s must see entertainment for you.

Jeremy has his walls decorated with KISS, the Lions, cars, and pictures of his friends. It is kind of weird to walk in there and suddenly see Gene Simmons and his tongue staring you down from every angle.

Day and night, night and day, I see that so-and-so loves so-and-so and that John Doe was here in ’83. That is what is on the campers’ cabin walls. No pretty pictures or happy momentos, unless you know John Doe and were here with him in ’83. If you win the clean cabin award you have a decoration for a day. Other than that you have to hope that you end up in a cabin with some pretty interesting graffiti in it.

And what about Lakefront? My goodness, they should rent that place out as a bed and breakfast.

I’ve seen those picture of the first camps where people lived in tents for a week. I am glad I wasn’t around in 1922. They got up at 6:30. In the morning. That is 5:30 real time. Who was the insane person who thought this up? A rooster?

You know what though? I love those graffiti walls and the beds and Lake Michigamme and nature sounds instead of car brakes squealing. I even like the bugs. They aren’t like real bugs; they’re camp bugs. It all makes it camp, the greatest place I’ve ever been.

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