There’s nothing quite like pitching a tent in your backyard to keep the crotch goblins off your god damn back because the camping trip to Denmark got cancelled this weekend. Now, just because it’s in your backyard doesn’t mean you should let your kids miss out on the real camping experience. Here’s how:
Leave something important at “home” – can you really go camping unless you realised you’ve left something important behind when you’re already 45minutes into the start of your journey?
To replicate this experience at home, try leaving your kid’s puffer at a mate’s house. Make sure the kids feel every Newton of that rage-induced U-Turn as you turn into a semi-automatic blame rifle firing indiscriminately into the ether.
Setting up the campsite meltdown – if you’re not a seasoned campaigner you’ve probably quite recently blown all your X-Mas BCF gift cards on a bunch of camping gear that you un-admittedly have not mastered.
Watching mum & dad go full IKEA styles on each other while battling the tent poles of their incompetence is an important part of a child’s development. Don’t even dream of finishing the set up without breaking something important and then beaming with pride that you managed to shove some-shit in some other-shit to make it work.
Fire horseplay – by law, lighting a campfire involves one overly proud person making a dog’s breakfast of it while everyone else stands around adding their two cents. This ultimately ends in everyone launching a coup-d’etat to usurp the clown who couldn’t organise a burn at a ham, cheese & tomato toastie party.
For further realism, one of you needs to play the role of the braindead cousin and cop some superficial burning to your leg trying to jump the pit. It’s just the way nature intended it.
Drunken yahoos nearby – it wouldn’t be a WA camping experience unless campers near you are treating their nature escape as a 72-hour full-frontal assault on their livers. Complete with fights, overbearing music and some kind of Patrol related car accident.
This is a rare moment when having pisswreck neighbours is an advantage. Gift them a carton to ensure your kids get the full experience of WA’s obnoxious camping culture.
Bug attack – if there is one thing that generations of camping have taught us, it’s that bugs always find a way to get all up in your shit. These crafty little buggers are just waiting to give someone a lifetime of nightmares after crawling across their face in the dead of night in a dark tent.
No one is suggesting you up the psychometer to 11 and actually plant a huntsman, just leave the flap a little bit unzipped. Then wait for the scream and nervous breakdown. They’ll get over it.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?