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Spiders, backaches and bears, oh my!

3 min read

The Dolinars are not tent people. We are hotel people, and rented beach house people, and lake cottage people. But we are not the sort to go camping.

This is notable only because I, a member of a camping-averse family, will soon be spending a week in the Vermont woods in a tent. I announced this during our family gathering over the Labor Day weekend, flexing my bicep as I delivered the news, to demonstrate my wildernessy strength.

“Camping? Why?” was the collective answer from the Dolinars.

As a birthday present for the farmer, I have agreed to forgo the cushy romance of an autumn getaway in a New England inn and instead spend night after night scraping daddy longlegs spiders off my air mattress.

I know about the daddy longlegs because of my two nights spent in a yurt, which is what they call a tent when it’s offered as shelter for mothers of Brownie girl scouts. Somehow, yurt sounds more civilized than tent, but don’t be fooled like I was. The only difference between a yurt and a tent is the wooden platform on which it’s built. I am here to tell you, the spiders get in either way.

Still, after much prodding from the farmer (and I do owe him because he’s spending all day every day 35 feet up on a scaffold painting the house), I acquiesced.

What he said: “Crisp mountain air! Wake to the dew and the birds singing! Stories around the campfire! Fall asleep to the sounds of the crickets!”

What I heard: “Freezing midnight walks to the public restroom! Damp clothes 24/7! Spider anxiety! Bear anxiety! No sleep! Backaches! Wait … what was that sound?”

The farmer called me a wimp, and I’ll admit I’m no him. When he first moved to Argentina several years ago, he lived in a tent with his two dogs for three weeks. And there wasn’t a public restroom nearby. And they have tarantulas there. When he’d finally moved into his farmhouse, he would find tarantulas in the bedroom. He would gently lead them back outside. This is what I’m dealing with here.

I think he’s expecting too much from me. I like a big, bubbly shower every day, but it’s yet to be told whether the same hygienic credo will apply when I have to haul my array of haircare products, blow dryer, towel, razor and the rest of it through a probable bear gauntlet to a cinderblock building – which also has spiders.

After we’d booked the camping spot, the farmer informed me there’s no WIFI at the campground. He feared this news would devastate me, but he’s worrying about the wrong thing.

It is a well-known fact that daddy longlegs spiders are among the most venomous on Earth, and the only reason Brownies and other campers are not routinely felled by them is that their fangs aren’t long enough to penetrate thick human skin. And now that I’m thinking about this, I am a thin-skinned wimp who doesn’t like to sleep in the woods.

I will be daddy longlegs kibble. With bad hair.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.

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