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Thursday, February 07, 2008

Setting Up a Tent Blind-Folded

42 started Flashback Friday last week. I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, and a post that Sally HP wrote early this week about finding baby items in a bowl of soup while blindfolded at her baby shower reminded me of my own incident with a blindfold in college. Get your mind out of the gutter! So you'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn why taking my kids to the library anytime in the next ten years would be a really bad idea.

When I went to Wellesley College, I joined a club called the Outing Club. It was one of the clubs that had a combined membership between Wellesley and MIT. My friends and I were very excited to go on a big campout with a bunch of different colleges one spring. By the time we got there, it was starting to get dark, and we were starving. Fortunately the MIT contingent had agreed to bring the food. Unfortunately, they forgot to bring enough for us, and I have a distinctly bad memory of eating someone else's leftover spaghetti. After Suzanne's post (and the comments from various people) about eating food out the trash, I finally feel okay with this.

I hadn't been camping in about 5 years, and none of my friends had ever camped. Fortunately the MIT contingent had agreed to bring the tents. Even more fortunately, they remembered to bring one for us. When they gave it to us, we did what we thought was the reasonable thing and asked where the directions were. They looked at us like we were crazy. Fortunately engineering students don't need instructions to know how to put things together. Unfortunately liberal arts majors do. Fortunately male engineering students lack the patience to watch liberal arts coeds fumble around trying to put together a tent at the pace of a snail while it gets dark. They jumped in, corrected our mistakes and put the tent together in about 2 seconds. Alright, maybe it was 60 seconds, but I swear all I did was turn around and it was assembled. They gave us a weird look, commented on how putting a tent together was really quite easy, and left.

That's why I was shocked the next day when they suggested the following bonding activity for all the colleges: put together a tent while blindfolded. No, I'm not kidding. Not wanting to be bad sports my friends and I participated. Needless to say, the only record we set was for the longest amount of time ever taken to put together a tent. The MIT geniuses contingent seemed genuinely stunned. I remember pointing out to them that we couldn't even get the tent together with our eyes open much less with a blindfold on. We did much better on the task requiring us to run around several trees with water on a spoon without spilling any of it.

As for our tent? I hated to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it was set up on a patch of completely uneven ground so we ended up sleeping outside.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: If you can't do something with your eyes open, there's a good chance you won't be able to do it blindfolded.

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posted by Alex Elliot @ 6:53 PM   7 comments
7 Comments:

  • At 2/07/2008 10:41 PM, Blogger super des said…

    i like those tents that don't involve being put together.

     

  • At 2/08/2008 12:22 AM, Blogger Nora Bee said…

    This is great. I am married to an MIT alum, so can relate fully. What? You need instructions? Give me that.

     

  • At 2/08/2008 8:10 AM, OpenID cablegirl said…

    Hahaha. Yeah, I'd so be sleeping outside if I had to put a tent together blindfolded. Either that or I'd be wearing an eye patch and not a blindfold from having skewered myself on a tent pole.

    Thanks for playing Flashback Friday with me. :D There's a Mr. Linky up on my post for this week if you want to sign in.

     

  • At 2/08/2008 9:01 AM, Blogger Heather said…

    Yeah, but could they give directions on how to put the tent up? Doubtful.

     

  • At 2/08/2008 12:14 PM, Blogger Lizzy in the Burbs said…

    Funny! I much prefer the "pop-up" variety that only requires one tug and the whole thing self assembles. (they kind of look like igloos) Actually,...I much prefer the hotel room!

    Lizzy

     

  • At 2/09/2008 2:09 AM, OpenID pincushionpoints said…

    Can you say room service? Putting up the tent is just one of the things I hate about cramping.

     

  • At 2/13/2008 2:17 AM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    Yeah, I admire you for roughing it out there, but I'll keep to places with indoor plumbing.

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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