I spent this past weekend in a cabin up in the scenic mountains of Boone, N.C. While enjoying nature's splendor, I came to the saddening realization that I will never be the kind of guy who consistently spends weekends in the mountains and camps. I will never be a real outdoorsman. It's not because I miss the creature comforts of civilization. I don't mind getting dirty or going for a few days without Internet access and a working cell phone. I'm fairly athletic, so hiking and the like doesn't bother me. I'm also not particularly afraid of bears. Hippos are the real threat anyway; plus, I make a point of always being around at least two people I can outrun whenever outside.
I will never be in tune with nature for one reason and one reason only: I cannot, and will most likely never be able to, grow a decent beard. It is my utter and total belief that in order to do outdoorsy stuff, growing a real beard must be an option you possess. You don't necessarily have to grow said beard, but you must be able to if called upon. Can you imagine Grizzly Adams or that Bounty Paper Towel guy without a beard? I think not. Say I went on one of these mountain trips, got lost and had to spend a year in the wilderness fending for myself (in reality I would be dead in a week, but humor me here). After a year, I'm found. I guarantee nobody would take me seriously as a survivor. They'd look at me and say, "That guy hasn't been lost for a year. He doesn't even have a beard. Let's get out of here. What a jerk." That beard is the difference between hero and jerk. Anyway, I haven't been this sad about a realization since I was 10 years old and figured out I would never play in the NBA because I was short, un-athletic and sucked at basketball.
In order to balance out my natural, unadulterated weekend in the mountains, I will be spending my entire spring break in Las Vegas, Nevada. This will surely wipe clean any positive progress I made in the mountains reading books and breathing fresh air. You've got to have balance in life. I'm feeling way too healthy right now.
Recently, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon involving the e-mails I receive in regards to my columns. Most of them are not from actual people. Some of them are, like when I make the mistake of poking fun at the great Darius Rucker (Hootie, of Hootie and The Blowfish) or Backstreet Boys fan clubs. The vast majority of letters, however, consist of nothing more than spam based on keywords found in my writing. I never expected to get a large number of e-mails from actual people, but I certainly did not expect this.
When I used the word "Iditarod" in regards to the event some giant-sunglass-wearing females might be headed towards, I was inundated with articles about what a terrible and abusive race it is. Yeah, like I'm the guy on the back of the sled whipping a bunch of freezing dogs. I leave that sort of stuff to Paul Walker. When I discussed the purity of bottled waters, I received messages offering me discounts on bulk filtration systems. With this in mind I have decided to dedicate the end of this column to saying random things in an attempt to trigger as many automatic e-mails as humanly possible. Here goes:
Lipton, iPod, Dell Computers, actual dells, "The Farmer in the Dell," "The Simpsons," calculators, abacuses, Advil, tape, printers, routers, paper clips (I should probably stop looking around my desk), paper towels, Frankenstein, "The Bride of Frankenstein,"the Olympics, the Pan-American Games, fish, Phish, cars, The Cars, The Oscars, Guys named Oscar and, finally, the Magna Carta.
I'll let you know if that turns up anything interesting.
Eric's column runs biweekly on Mondays. He can be reached at ast@cavalierdaily.com.
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