QUARANTINE CAMP RULES TO FOLLOW WHEN POSSIBLE

Quarantine Camp Rule #1: Be your best self.

If you’ve camped in the wild, did you take a shower every day? Change clothes every day? Nobody does that.

Quarantine Camp allows showers and clean clothes. You’ll find the materials nearby, like the bathroom and a closet.

If you have an excuse for funk, and think it’s pretty good, it’s not.

If no one will tell you to clean up your act? ‘Clean up your act, I can smell it from here,’ says every friend and family member you call and text.

Checking in means asking hard questions, like, “Have you run out of soap?”

Quarantine Camp Is Not Army Bootcamp Bivoac Week

For the uninitiated, Bivoac Week is bootcamp lingo for finding another guy with half a tent to team up with. See, the Army provides something called a ‘Shelter Half.’ You have half, the other guy has the other half, and they snap together.

One of the important tasks in setting up bivouac camp is the digging a rain ditch around the tent. Even if it doesn’t rain, dig that trench.

Drill Sergeant: Son, that ditch isn’t deep enough.

Trainee: Yes, Drill Sergeant.

My campsite was on a hillside we leveled with entrenching tools. The Drill Sergeant came back for final inspection.

Drill Sergeant: Still not deep enough, son. And there’s rain in the forecast.

The guy stood about ten feet up hill, hauled his junk out, and let loose a stream like he’d been saving it since his last beer bender. A tsunami of pee rolled down that hill and headed right for us.

If you’ve heard workers talk to a new guy about work pace: “All we show the boss is elbows and assholes and work faster.”

That’s what we did as the yellow wave got closer and closer and we knew we’d be stuck in a urine drenched tent since we were warned.

Quarantine Camp isn’t as risky, but rules still apply.

I know staying home is hard. The routine becomes a rut. We have to face our own mundane selfs and pretend it’s all good.

Is it?

What do you do when a buddy calls to say they’ve got a new pet? But they don’t tell you what kind of dog it is when you ask, “What kind of dog is it?”

Never go see a new pet if the person you’re visiting wants to surprise you.

Them: Are you surprised?

You: Yes. Did the cage come with it, like a package deal?

Them: Yes, and I’ll let it out so you can formally meet.

You: That’s okay. It looks nice enough from here.

Them: I’ve been waiting so you can see it eat. You won’t believe how fast it strikes.

You: No need for that. I’ve seen Wild Kingdom with Marlon Perkins and his man Jim.

Them: I think he likes you.

Coronavirus As Snake

Marlon and Jim are the virus hunters with a big-ass snake playing the virus.

Snakey is in its environment when the men decide to wade into the water.

First, Marlon chokes it to control the head, and the bite. Snakey wraps Jim up; Marlon helps with one hand, the other around the snake’s neck; Marlon steps in an underwater hole, snake wraps him; Jim to the rescue.

First time I saw this happen I was young and impressionable. I’m still jumpy around snakes, but keep it tapped down.

I’m more than a little jumpy around covid-19 until they get it in a bag.

For now, use all the precautions. There’s a mean snake out there, and you can’t see it.

But it sees you, and it’s hungry.