Step 1- Set up McMansion. Alone. In the rain.

Step2 – Re-confirm your conclusion of four days earlier that tent stakes that are either plastic or blunt do, indeed, suck.

Step 3 – Ignore the overwhelming smell of sulpher and pray its source is the marsh and not the RV that has just connected its hose to the in-ground poo pot.

Step 4 – Compose thoroughly witty blog posts in your head to keep yourself chuckling  instead of crying and breaking tent poles.

Step 5 – Get inside tent, wrap up in sleeping bag just in time for heavy rains to bust through coniferous tree cover.  Read magazine.  Compose more witty blog entries as you consider the irony of reading Fast Company while broke, alone, and cold in a McMansion tent.

Step 6 – Fall asleep to sound of pounding rain.

Step 7 – Wake up as the pounding turns to drops and the grey light fades to dusk.

Step 8 – Eat cereal standing outside McMansion–since you don’t own a camp chair–in the dark.  Ponder the significance of fires and wish you thought to bring both wood and fire of your own.

Step 9 – Brush teeth in spotless bathhouse scented with bleach.

Step 10 – Go back to bed roll and fall asleep staring at the tips of trees.  Wonder if the occasional waft of sulpher is the cause of your headache.