Ain't nothin' wrong with DVDs on camping trips

Every year, I go away for a few days and sleep in a tent.

That's camping, folks, and if you can think of a better word for it, you can shove it in your water filtration system.

People ask me where I go and I mumble, "The Poconos," which immediately drops my trip down a notch. Apparently, you're not really camping unless you're in Idaho or Manitoba.

This is what I bring -- a tent, sleeping bags and pillows, coolers, my iPod and its boom box, extension cords, flashlights, hot dogs and rolls, Kraft singles American cheese, bacon, eggs, beer, a coffee maker and Snapple. I bring cigarettes, too. I'm sorry, I mean I used to bring them when I smoked.

I cook on my propane-powered Coleman stove and buy ice and firewood every morning at the campground's convenience store. Yeah, my campground has a convenience store and it's very convenient.

Ironically, I don't bring a lot of clothes and make it a point not to shower the whole time.
During the day, I fish for Smallmouth Bass and do cannonballs off bridges. Since I always forget my energy bars, I usually scarf down some Arby's, a vanilla soft-serve with rainbow jimmies and some light beer by the fire later on. I expend a lot of carbs climbing up cliffs to jump from, so cut me a break.

When I used to camp with my friends, we always got yelled at by the creepy campground manager for blasting this weird Jimi Hendrix song after "quiet time." Now, we're all too busy to get drunk by the fire pit for a weekend. I'm calling you guys out right now.

Last year, my son and I went to my campground for the first time, and I'll tell you what, he's a chip off the old block -- he made me bring a DVD player.

Don't even say anything.

We also went to the batting cages and ate cotton-candy ice cream. On our nature hike at the zoo, he fed carrots to a Giraffe. They have blue tongues.

A bad, little goat ate a hole in my shorts there and my son still giggles about it. That's just not going to happen on an eight-day adventure hike through the Moab Dessert. And plus, where would I get ice cream?