As the cab passed by tree after tree, the feeling of impending doom was swirling in the pit of my stomach. We were on our way to visit the grouchiest, most blunt woman I’ve ever heard of, my great aunt Pearl. She had feet the size of Ohio and wrinkles as deep as the Grand Canyon, if you had a flaw she would point it out without hesitating. My mom would send me up there for a weekend every year because she was “lonely” or “depressed” which really meant she wanted time alone with my father. I leisurely gathered my belongings and exited the car, shutting the car door behind me. Standing in a cloud of dust, I unhurriedly proceeded toward the yellow door. Aunt Pearl embraced me and assisted me to my room while instructing me to meet her downstairs in an hour for dinner. The house gradually became filled with the aroma of lasagna, and while slowly indulging in the food, I told a camping story of the adventure we had last summer when I fractured my arm. That was when the chair grew chains and never-ending story began:
“When I was a young girl, I lived in a house, a small house, right next to a forest that led to a mountain so high you could touch the moon from the top. And one night when the coyotes were screamin’, my sister and I decided to climb to the top. We brought water and food and a blanket and a couple of apples and nothing else. We waited ‘til my parents were asleepin’ then we ran. Little did we know that that night would be the night we met the devil incarnate almost stole our souls. As we ran through the dense trees, hitting out faces on almost every branch, we got tired real fast. We lyed down aside some rocks and tried to sleep some and regain our energy. But just as my eyes had sealed, a rumble, a roar came from the bushes right next to us! It was louder than an airplane! And the next thing we knowed, a monster the size of two elephants came charging at us. It had claws bigger that a sword and eyes yellower than the sun and ears bigger than my entire arm. We didn’ know what to do so we ran and ran with the creature nippin’ at our ankles! That thing chased us all over town, spewing snot and slobber over everything it passed. And after about twenty miles, it caught us! I was the oldest and knew I had to protect my sister and began wrestling the fiend. I beat him until he sprinted into the brush, whimpering! And all I had to show for it was a cut on the side of my face as long as a toothpick. And we went home and our parents never found out. That’s what true camping is.”
I had heard that story probably a thousand times, and would most likely hear it a thousand times more. That story may be true or she has told the story a thousand times and is now convinced this IS the truth. Maybe the account of how I broke my arm last summer camping will transform into a tale such as this.