Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

I can not believe I am heading to Camp Hari Kari. Again.

That would account for the pit stains and generalized anxiety, me thinks.

I am a volunteer driver for this adventure. I may live to regret all the decisions I have made regarding this trip.

The other two mothers are in the minivan I'll be following. My navigator is my eleven-year old. Scott lends me Betty, his GPS. My daughter can no more interpret the rambling prose directions provided by the Girl Scouts than I can. They reference things like political billboards and signs for establishments that may or may not still be open now that the economy has gone belly up all over. We are doomed.

As Betty directs and redirects and I whiz over hill and dale to an address she does not recognize and is constantly repositioning to find, I make a mental note to market my own verson of Betty. It should be a GPS that has a raking voice not unlike that of Mrs. Costanza (WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THIS PAELLA????) or one's own mother, natch. Instead of very calmly recalculating directions once you've missed the turn she warned you about with plenty of time to change lanes and slow down, this GPS will be the typical co-pilot and chastise you:

"Great! Now you've missed it! I guess I'll get out the map and get us out of the bowels of Hell myself."

"Would you like me to drive, Ponce De Leon?"

"Thank God for Sacagawea. Pull over while I figure out how to get us out of this mess."

"Go left. YOUR OTHER LEFT, DUMB ASS! Now you've done it. Pull into South of the Border and we'll ask Poncho if he can direct us. Let's hope your fledgling Spanish skills are better than your driving."

"Hello, the speed limit on this road is 65. We'll never get there if you are going to drive like a little old lady."

I could make a fortune.

But for now, I am going the speed limit across mountainous roads and through quaint little towns while 3 overly excited tweens complete and recite Mad Libs and laugh hysterically at nonsense references to Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber and tweenish names for body parts we don't generally talk about in polite company, and use vocabulary words like "haberdashery," and words like"turdball" because their mothers aren't in the car but instead are at home having a Chardonnay and watching a rated R movie because they can.

At last we get to Camp Hari Kari. We are greeted by a collection of earthy grey haired ladies in patchwork jeans, LL Bean shoes and lots of denim. They are so disappointed. There is a running water problem at the camp site. They are weighing our options. Would we be terribly disappointed if we had to stay in a cabin?

Disappointed? Ummm, no. I am privately thanking whatever nameless partron saint of Campers. And sending one to Francis of Assissi (Ecologists) and Patrick, (Fear of Snakes) just for good measure. They have smiled upon us.

We get to the cabin. Cute, quaint, rustic, faces the lake. So far so good. At least on the outside.

The girls are very excited and are all piling out of the cars to get inside. Debbie, the leader, stops us. She wants to prepare the girls. "Girls we got lucky with this cabin tonight, but I doubt that it is as luxurious as you are expecting. Don't expect it to look like your mom cleaned it, or your grandmom."

Like they care about clean. Please.

We go inside. It doesn't even look like Helen Keller cleaned it. The sink, for starters, is filled with rust and the smell of rotting God-knows-what wafts from the drain. Leaves blow across the wooden floor and collect in a corner below the windows draped with stained gauze curtains.

I am seriously thinking that my daughter and I will be sleeping in the car.