Bachelor Lunch IV - I Blame Society
I Blame Society (Part IV)
I’m on a dry lakebed in one of LA’s more distant suburbs (Primm,
Nevada) for a group campout, and little is going according to plan.
I’d arrived the previous afternoon alone, my companions having
begged-off at the last minute. My sport-yoot is packed with
desert-living necessities- tent, water, food, flame-print moo-moo,
jester’s hat, Viking helmet, etc. Missing are the mechanical fittings
needed to connect my sections of electrical conduit into an elegant,
flea-market-style shade structure. This critical planning error
portends disaster. A shade structure is de rigueur at these desert
affairs. No one can hope to survive the brutal conditions in a simple
tent. My prospects are grim.
Fortunately, as so often happens, out of crisis comes action. My
brain, Boy-scout trained and testosterone-convoluted, down-shifts into
survival mode. (Unfortunately, the brain, thus down-shifted, neglects
the important task of periodically reminding the mouth to drink enough
water to avoid dehydration. This will figure in what is to come.)
With heavy-duty elastic cords I tie sections of conduit into a pair of
wobbly tripods. More cords secure gray and white tarps between the
sport-yoot’s luggage rack and the tripods. As darkness gathers, I have
a crude, third-world refugee-grade shade-cube under which to set up my
tent.
I also forgot to bring one other minor thing on this camping trip- a
sleeping bag. Fortunately I have enough clothes to fashion a primitive
nest atop an air mattress. After a brief walkabout among the other
groups of campers, (and still neglecting to drink the life-sustaining
water) I retire for some well-deserved sleep.
Unfortunately, I’ve chosen my campsite badly. I’m in the sound-cone of
one of the louder camps, and the dance music is thumping all night
long. At volume approaching the theoretical maximum of One Hundred
Ninety-Four decibels- Above which the very molecules of air (and
eardrums!) begin to break down into sub-atomic particles. The thumping
continues, to dawn and beyond. Small bits of sleep and fragmentary
dreams intermix with hours of confused, dehydrated wakefulness. The
desiccating night wind rises, and my poorly-staked tripods begin to
sway and scuttle about in small, jerky steps, the wind crackling
through the tarps. The whole shade assemblage begins to move, swelling
and shrinking with passing gusts, as though alive and breathing- A
panting beast straining against the slender leashes binding it to the
sport-yoot. In dehydrated confusion I imagine the shade-cube dances to
the music-camp’s beat. So passes the night.
By next mid-morning I need my Bachelor Lunch. The wobbly shelter is
affixed to my sport-yoot with a spider web of elastic cords. I’d need
to detach some of these in order to open any door of the ‘yoot. But by
now a hot wind is blowing- I don’t dare unhook a single cord, lest the
wobble-cube instantly separate into its constituent parts and fly, like
an unleashed animal, across the desert. I abandon hope of lunch and
return to my tent.
Soon the midday sun blazes. I’ve foolishly put a gray, rather than
white, tarp on the top of the wobble-cube. The gray absorbs the Sun’s
harmful rays and re-emits them in infra-red form, penetrating deeply
into my flesh. It’s the greenhouse effect, but localized and magnified
far beyond Al Gore’s imaginings. I think of Cool-Hand Luke in “The
Box.” I survive the day on a few small bottles of water I’d left in
the tent during set-up the afternoon before.
Sunset comes and I hurriedly break camp and head back to LA. Around 8pm
I make it to the Denny’s in Baker (Home of the world’s tallest
thermometer!). While eating a belated Bachelor Lunch (The Lumberjack
Slam- Three kinds of meat!), I contemplate Denny’s vaulted ceiling,
considering the many parallels in the architecture of fast food
restaurants and churches. Finally, a free refill of Diet Coke relieves
the last residual dehydration dementia (and caffeine-withdrawal
headache). I drive back to LA, feeling my old self again.
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