Archive for the ‘Stories for the campfire’ Category

Live and Loin

Saturday, May 14th, 2005

A lesson in using the right stuff for the job came into full focus today for my teenage son.

He’d spent the latter part of the afternoon edging the yard, and was getting ready for a casual dinner out. Next time I saw him, he was cringing, grabbing his crotch and weaving around the yard saying, “It’s so cold, it’s freezing, man this hurts…”, etc. I laughed at him because I thought he was joking, then started to wonder because he was really frantic. I asked him what was wrong, and he managed to gasp that he had used his foot powder instead of cornstarch baby powder to “freshen up”.

Yikes. It was pretty amusing from afar, but I don’t think he thought so. It took a bit of a soak in the tub to get him settled down, and he said he still noticed the lingering effect a couple of hours later. Lesson the next: don’t use anything with menthol, eucalyptus oil or peppermint oil in an area you don’t want to have a really chilling effect.

Well, that’s something you wouldn’t want to try on the Philmont trek, now, isn’t it?

Marfa Lights

Sunday, May 8th, 2005

As a high school student, a couple of friends and I took a long drive down a desolate road late at night in a far corner of west Texas. It was time to find the Marfa lights, and we were not disappointed.
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