Inside is where it's at

So I’m going to come right out and say this. I am not a “nature person”. I spent a great deal of my life denying this personality trait of mine but I finally have to bone up and admit it. I don’t like hanging around outside. I don’t. It’s certainly not from a lack of effort on my father’s part growing up. He was constantly taking us camping, swimming, biking, hiking and a bunch of other –ing activities. I hated every minute of it. I’m more like my mom in that way. I like inside. Inside is nice and climate controlled. Inside has TV and other cool things that you plug in.

I’ve been this way since I was young. When I was a kid I was sent outside after school. I know this was an effort to get me out of my mom’s hair. I found it unbearably boring. I went to private school so I didn’t actually live around any of my school friends. The few kids in my neighborhood generally kept to themselves. While most kids went outside and played on the playground or did kick ball or whatever it is that kids do when they are outside, I would go to the library. I could honestly say I knew more librarians by their first names than I knew kids by my house. I just didn’t like outside.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate nature. After a long winter in Wisconsin a day at the park can be quite pleasant. I prefer to sit outside when I’m at the pub on a nice day. It’s magnificent and gorgeous to view from the inside of an automobile driving through the mountains or the deserts of Arizona. Do I want to get out of the car and walk around in it? No. No, I don’t. You know why? Let me lay it out for you:

• Bugs. There are many many bugs in nature. And unlike when a bug crawls into your home, you aren’t allowed to kill the bugs using the excuse of, “this is my home and bugs aren’t allowed to reside here. Die you evil creepy crawly bastard!” When you are in nature, you are in the bugs’ home. They are allowed to bother you and buzz in your ear and make attempts to steal your sandwich. Bastards.
  
  
  
  
  
  Mosquitoes will steal your baby. 
• It’s too hot\cold\windy\wet. Ever wonder why not many people live in the desert or high mountains or in jungles or in the deep forest? It’s inhabitable- unless you’re Grizzly Adams, a hippie, a monkey or a sheik (or any combination thereof). There should be no reason in the world I should feel the need to shower after running down the driveway to get my mail – which I’m sure I would if I lived in any one of these “nature” areas – if I even got mail!  

• Big Toothy Animals. Bears. Mountain Lions. Cougars. Panthers. Coyotes. Snakes. Hyenas. Boars. Tigers. Rhinos. Hippos. Badgers. Mosquitoes. Need I go on?

• Dead Bodies. Nobody ever finds dead bodies picking up ointment at Walgreens. Joggers find bodies. Hikers find bodies. Hunters find bodies. Campers find bodies. Finding a dead body in nature isn’t like seeing a dead body at a funeral where they are all in their nice clothes with their hair and make-up done. Dead bodies found in nature normally did not parish due to ‘natural causes’. Dead bodies in nature could be in any state – naked, dismembered, half-eaten, rotting. I seriously cannot take that risk. I watch “How Clean Is Your House?” and get nauseous.

Seriously, this is disgusting.

With all this said, I don’t actually mind going for a short 2 day camping trip. Well, as long as I don’t have to hike to the campsite, and as long as there are flush toilets, and plenty of beer and bug spray, and you don’t make me go for long walks, and someone remembers to bring a radio, and the place is confirmed to have a distinct absence of dead bodies.