14. Anne vs Wild

Chapter 14: Anne vs. Wild

A couple of years ago, dad took me camping. We drove up to San Bernadino and the next three days were spent in a tent that barely kept out the seemingly constant rain, swatting swarms of mosquitos that found me irresistibly delicious despite the copious amounts of foul smelling "repellent" we used, attempting to start fires but failing because the rain I mentioned before completely soaked it, and eating cold food out of cans because the local fish weren't interested in being caught. It was an absolute disaster and we never spoke of it again.

Later on I found out that he didn't particularly like camping either but he wanted to try it because he read that it was a great opportunity for father-daughter bonding. Well… at least we were able to bond over how much we both hated camping, so in the end – no, it still wasn't worth it.

The point is: roughing it is not for me.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because, as I was sitting there this morning, contemplating how the swamp humidity is absolute murder on my hands, searching my backpack for some moisturizer, and finding a bath bomb that for some reason I had taken to school on my birthday (frankly, I don't even remember packing half the stuff I have in there. I really should check more often), the Plantars came by all packed up like they were about to go on some big trip, which they'd never mentioned.

So, apparently there's this big camping trip they go on every year. Okay, now, remember what I just told you about my feelings about camping. Normally it's not anything I'd ever want to do. But the fact that they didn't even ask me whether I wanted to go… that they didn't even think about asking me if I wanted to go… well, that got to me. I know I'm not a Plantar… I'm still basically a glorified houseguest/farmhand… but after all this time I'd like to think that I'm at least Plantar-adjacent.

So, very much against my better judgement (but how often do I listen to that?) I insist on coming along.

I know I'm going to regret this…

We arrived at Camp Phlegmmington in the early afternoon, and it became very clear that I am totally not cut out for this. I can't fish, I can't set up a tent without it catching on fire (seriously, how does that happen?), and I can't even sleep in a sleeping bag right. That's like the easiest thing to do out of everything and I still wound up rolling down the hill into a bramble patch.

Oh, and the bugs. Sprig slathered me with this sticky gunk that smells like durian vomit. It's supposed to keep the pests away, but the ticks still treated me like an all-you-can-eat buffet… and the ticks here are the size of squirrels. I hope Lyme disease isn't a thing.

And I guess HP picked up on my general miserable vibe, because he offered to let me take Bessie home if I wanted to. Which would be the smart thing to do at this point. But as we have long established at this point, I do not do the smart thing. Oh, no no no. What I do is double down on my stupidity, and insist that I prefer more extreme camping. The kind where you eat nothing but tree mold and drink nothing but your own pee. That sure sounds like something I'd do, doesn't it?

Well, I'm hoping that at this point, someone will call me on my BS but, wouldn't you know it, this maniac pops out of the bushes and tells us he knows the most extreme campsite imaginable. You ever see those shows on late-night cable about extreme wilderness survival, with these rugged wilderness dudes running around wrestling wolverines with their bare hands? Yeah, dial that up to around fifteen and you get Soggy Joe. Dude has animal bones permanently tangled in his beard (also, today I learned frogs can have beards), and I swear something took a bite out of his tongue. And well, maybe he's a nice guy, but like I said, he was spying on us from the bushes, and he has a laugh like some kind of deranged lunatic. For all I know, he could be taking us to this place so he can kill us, skin us, eat us, and make custom furniture out of our bones and leather. And if you think that can't happen, well, legendary horror director Cress Ghoulman got five movies out of the premise in his The Carpenter series (though he was kinda phoning it in for the last couple).

But really, spending the rest of my existence as an end table is a small price to pay for not having to admit the truth, right? At least, that's what I rationalized to myself when I volunteered us to go with him. And hey, on the off chance he doesn't murder us and do unspeakable things to our corpses, he promised to take us out for pancaked in the morning, so, I guess there's something to look forward to?

So, there we were, in the deepest darkest part of the swamp. It was nighttime… or maybe daytime? It was kind of impossible to tell, because it seemed like no light to penetrate the area. If it wasn't for our campfire, we wouldn't be able to see two inches in front of our faces. It really would have been the perfect place to murder someone.

Well, for the moment, we were still alive. It was time for scary campfire stories, which honestly would have been a lot or fun if we weren't living in one right at the moment. Soggy Joe started telling this story about the Mud Men, cannibalistic mud monsters who rise up out of the marsh at night and feast on the flesh of the innocent, fearing only light and cleanliness. Which, standard campfire stuff really, and he really sold it, but who knows? I've seen some crazy stuff here, so for all I know it's real. So it wasn't all that comfortable when he suddenly ran off to use the bathroom (or more likely a hole in the ground)… and definitely not when he came back almost immediately… with an axe in his back. No lie, I just about needed a hole in the ground myself at that moment.

Then the campfire suddenly went out, but luckily Hop Pop brought copper matches because what we really needed was for everything to be bathed in an eerie green glow. It certainly added to the ambience when the mud men turned out to be real.

So there we were surrounded by muddy cannibals. Fire wasn't working, since they could just fling their mud to snuff out our torches. And the only other thing that could help us were any kind of cleaning supply, and where were we going to get that?

…and then I remembered I still had that bath bomb from before (now that I think about it, it may have been a free gift from Blankets, Towels n' More). And I gotta say, it really sold me on the brand because it completely atomized every bit of mud off the Mud Men, revealing them to be… just plain old derpy-looking frogs who for some reason decided they wanted to cover themselves in mud and eat other frogs. And once they got cleaned up, they ran off in terror. Man, this world, I tell ya.

Anyway, good news, Soggy Joe survived (he was wearing his ax-proof vest, which it turns out is a thing), and we all decided that was pretty much it for camping. We decided to knock off and get breakfast for dinner. There's this great diner near Camp Phlegmmington which makes the best blueberry pancakes. Or what I thought were blueberry pancakes. They're actually pillbug pancakes, so, I guess there's one bug-based breakfast I like. Oh, and it turns out Soggy Joe's actually a really nice guy. He has some pretty great stories to tell and some interesting opinions on transcendentalism and is taking correspondence courses in aromatherapy, and… well, I guess I shouldn't judge people by their creepy exterior. I'll remember that for the future.

Speaking of learning lessons… well, I admitted that I was fronting about the whole "extreme camping" thing, and that all I really wanted was to feel included. In return, they promised to at least ask me to join them when they do stuff together. HP mentioned that they had a fishing trip planned for about a month and a half from now. Like I mentioned before, I can't fish worth beans, but it might be nice just to come along.

Speaking of being included… maybe it's about time I came clean about how I really ended up in Amphibia. It's not like I've found anything about the music box on my own… I'm never going to get anywhere if I don't start trusting people. And the Plantars have shown that they're definitely worthy of that trust.

A.N.: So, there was a deleted scene in this episode where Anne flashes back to a camping trip with her dad, so I thought I'd fill in a bit of that. Mr. B doesn't strike me as a super rugged outdoorsy type, so it wouldn't surprise me if he hated it as much as Anne did, but just did it because it's what you're supposed to do at some point. I may be proven wrong, but for now, I calls it how I see it.

Jose: Thanks!

Team Gophers: Yeah, lots of things in those early episodes that don't quite line up with later ones, but hey, they were finding their way. I'm trying to fansplain as best as I can.

Next: Contagi-Anne