Tales Told 'round the Hearth, Part One: A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

The fireplace at Campsite 175, Hearthstone Point, Lake George, New York. Those are beans on dem dar griddle!

The rainfall started at midnight.

First as a soft pitter-patter. It actually sounded comforting, hitting the side of the tent. I lay in my sleeping bag, on top of a deflated air mattress, and thought, "This is sweet."

My other thought, pushed to one side given the gentleness of the rainfall, was, "Where the hell are my keys?"

You see, I was alone in my tent, which I had taken to calling my "bachelor pad." The kids had elected to sleep with Josie in her tent (and she had assured me she wouldn't be creeping into my tent at night, seeking forbidden love). Both Pauline and Amber had their own spaces. I was a man with my own tent, partying it up in the wilds of Lake George, New York.

There was, however, a high price to be paid for securing this independence. You see, as a result, I had been designated keeper of the games. Which meant that I had a veritable mountain balanced precariously over my head. Monopoly. Parchesi. Finish Lines. The Perfect Ten. The list went on and on. And if my tent got soaked...

Well, I could always rush them into my car. That is, if I had the keys. But the thing was, I had somehow lost my keys. The last time I had seen them was when I had been forced to move my car by the camp sheriff, around ten at night.

(That's the thing about camping, you know. You really have to be careful about where you put your stuff after dark. Otherwise, you'll never be able to find anything until the break of dawn.)

Oh, I had an idea where the keys could be--I *thought* they were in the pocket of one of the fold-up chairs. But those chairs had been placed into Pauline's car, and that was locked up.

Which meant, if my tent started to flood, I, single-handedly, would be responsible for obliterating hours of family-style entertainment. For taking away a source of my children's happiness, as vital as milk is for healthy bones. It was a fate that hung heavy upon my shoulders, even heavier as each drop of rain fell to the ground.

The happy little mist kept hitting against my tent for about twenty minutes. I started to get used to that pitter patter. I almost started to think that I might be able to fall asleep, content, safe in the knowledge that this was as bad as it was going to get.

And then, the pitter-pattering moved up a notch.

It became more of a "splotch splotch."
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