I knew it was a bad idea.
I placed the order based on my strong recall of freezing on several overnight missions to the camp in the woods. Typically, that happens when I get lazy and let the fire go out before midnight.
Oh, and the fact that the Browning Mummy-style sleeping bag was marked down to forty-nine bucks.
I bought two. That was last autumn. The bag is allegedly good for keeping a body warm down to 20 degrees.
Before heading out to camp for my latest mission, I unboxed a bag, threw it into the Honda Hooptie, then pulled it back out, unfurling the thing a little bit shy of the guaranteed ten p.m. overwhelming darkness at the cabin.
Ellie looked at the tapered bag with a Labrador’s suspicion, coupled with the boxer half’s confused face.
I could hear her thoughts, “Ruh Roh.”
I’ve never owned a mummy bag, knowing that my feet are like free-range chickens with a longing to leave the nest to adventure to other locations within the bedded realm. At forty-nine bucks, I expected my feet to follow along with the plan, remaining contained within the tomb of doom.
After sliding into the bag, it felt pretty good. But feet that spend most of their days in separate leather compartments fashioned by the good folks at Red Wing don’t get along that well when stuffed together in what can only be considered steerage-level accommodations on a container ship.
The size ten and a halfs got along like juvenile siblings, bumping into one another, each one pushing back at the other while trying to find their way in the dark recesses of the dumbest idea I’ve had since earthworm farming as a teen.
Note to self, don’t build your earthworm farm inside a dirt-floor basement of a 1850s New England Cape. Worms can escape and can tunnel better than Richard Dawson and Bob Crane’s characters in “Hogan’s Heroes.”
I digress.
I lasted exactly one half hour inside the bag before worming my way back out, airing out the two dogs who had been fighting at the bottom, and digging out an old Coleman bag that I have owned since Obama was called Barry.
I will try it again, for it must be possible. I think it just needs to be much colder so my feet are forced to cuddle together for comfort. They simply are not ready for that kind of commitment.
These times do try us.
From the Jagged Edge of America, I remain,
TC
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