Sometimes mothers really do know best

(This entry is being submitted to Scribbit's July Write-Away contest. The theme this month is "your most adventurous moment".)

I've had many adventures in my life. There have been taxi rides in Cairo (no set fee, you get out of the cab and then hand whatever amount of money you feel is reasonable back in through the open window, tell me that's not nerve-wracking), maniacal drivers in Turkey, roads clogged with elephants in Thailand (right in the middle of a roundabout! when driving on the wrong side of the road! in a rental car! Surprise!), Hmong mystery dessert, again in Thailand (ask me about that one some day), loads of other adventures from my sordid past which shall remain unmentioned, at least for now. Heck, some of you even think that my life in Israel is adventurous...

All of those events pale in comparison to one in particular, long ago, in a galaxy country far far away. The Great Girl Scout Camping Trip of 1970-something or other. Now THIS was adventure.

It's been 30 years since then, but this little escapade is enscribed upon my brain in indelible ink. It was the day I first discovered that I am NOT in fact smarter than my mother. (It would have been even better had that lesson learned at age 8 actually stuck through my teenage years, but there are some things that just have to be learned and relearned again and again. There's a reason wisdom only comes with age.)

So there we were, Girl Scout Troop 410 (why oh why is my poor overstuffed brain crowded with useless trivia like the number of my old Girl Scout troop?), ready to set out and conquer the wilderness, if wilderness comes the form of overnight covered wagon platform camping at a Girl Scout camp. We had sleeping bags, we had cookout supplies, we had our pj's, our toothbrushes, hats (because of course 70% of your body heat is lost through your head), we had gotten safety talks, and behavior talks, and the (here it is folks, pay attention now) all-important NEVER EVER EVER BRING FOOD INTO YOUR TENT talk, given by our leader extraordinaire - my mom. Yes, experienced camper and troop leader that she was, she knew it would be vitally important to stress this particular rule.

The only problem?

A daughter who thought to herself, that's a stupid rule, I'm going to ignore that one. Yes readers, my friends and I decided to bring a few treats for a late night in-tent snack. And what you ask did we decide to bring? Why we brought Fun Dip of course. Yes, you read that correctly. We thought it would be a grand idea to bring FLAVORED SUGAR to an open tent in the woods.

We oh so sneakily hid the candy in our bags, bringing it out late at night once all the adults had gone to bed. We feasted on pure sugar, and sometime during our sugar high we managed to spill the sugar ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF MY SLEEPING BAG. Which we then ignored because by then we were well into sugar-induced coma. Yes, I went to sleep in a sleeping bag full of pure SUGAR.

Not for long though.

A very little while later I was awakened by movement of some kind INSIDE my sleeping back. It was furry. It was big. IT WAS EATING THE FUN DIP! I leapt up screaming, bringing every grownup within 10 miles running, where they found that I had a full-grown RACCOON inside my sleeping bag.

And boy was he mad at having his little late night snack interrupted.

Thankfully it all ended with nothing worse than a very long lecture by my mother on the importance of listening to adults who probably have a very good reason for what they're telling you (did I mention it was a very lonnnnnnng lecture?). It was a successful lecture, too. Not only did I learn that my mother does (sometimes at least) in fact know best, I also never touched Fun Dip again.