August, 2015

All Is Not Lost—But Much Is Misplaced

I don't "do" camping.

Oh, sure, when I was a kid I went on Girl Scout campouts. Enjoyed them, even. (Big difference when I helped keep a herd of Brownies under control for a weekend. Now I understand why my troop leader had a permanent furrow between her eyebrows.) But over the years, I've come to appreciate the words "room service" and see no reason to trade down.

And, since Ducky looks damned fine in a tux, it never occurred to me that I had married Grizzly Adams.

"You're joking." The only thing that would have shocked me more would be a positive pregnancy test at the ripe old age of 59.

Abby was almost literally bouncing around the living room. "It's so great! I haven't been camping in, wow, fifteen years?"

"Since you were ten?" I said with mild sarcasm. The woman just does not age. It's disgusting.

"No, since I was—" She broke off and gave me a sunny smile. "Older than ten."

"I'm not…keen…on camping," I said carefully.

"You had fun when we went to Willow Ridge," Lexi piped up.

I lied, I thought.

"It's going to be fun," Abby argued. "It's not even camping."

"Tents? Sleeping bags?" She nodded. "That's camping," I said.

"We're using tents. There's a cabin with a kitchen and one bedroom, we figured you and Ducky would want that. Lexi can bunk in with Ziva and me," Abby said brightly. And winked. (She had been campaigning for a little brother or sister for Lexi for years. Subtle.)

"And you guys aren't wanting to put bags on the floor instead of camping in tents?" I tried not to sound too disgusted.

Tim shook his head. "Not enough room. I remember being there as a kid. Kitchen-slash-dining area that can seat two… maybe three, with Lex… and one bedroom. No such thing as a living room. And a bathroom." He made a face. "Really small bathroom. But it works." He had inherited the cabin from a very long-lost uncle and wanted to check out the property in person before deciding to keep or sell. It quickly turned into a team trip over the weekend; how Ducky and I got involved, I'm not too sure.

Okay, Ducky, I could understand. One, he's part of the group and, two, if you're camping out in BFE, it's not a bad idea to have someone with medical knowledge—just in case. But how did I get involved?

Loose lips sink ships. Something was mentioned in the hearing of our favorite Girl Scout and if Daddy was going camping, why couldn't she? Uncle Timmy had no problem with her coming along—and if she and Daddy were going along, well, Mommy shouldn't be left home, should she? (Mommy says "yes.")

So the first weekend of August we loaded a rental SUV with everything 8 people could possibly need. Dr. and Mrs. Palmer and their twins were excused from this excursion, lucky dogs. Since McGee's engagement had quietly been broken and DiNozzo was between loves of his life, Ducky and I were the only couple in residence—so, yes, it did make sense that we were given the one and only bedroom.

Too bad it was unusable.

"Gangbangers?" DiNozzo guessed, looking at the trashed interior.

"No graffiti," Abby said.

"Juvenile delinquents?" Ziva suggested.

Gibbs shook his head and snorted. "Possums and raccoons, most likely." He pointed to the gaping holes in the mattress. "Nice, warm padding for burrows. That loose shutter by the front door was easy access for the critters but kept the bad weather out."

McGee sighed. "Sorry, Ducky; sorry, Sandy. Looks like the Hilton isn't open for business."

I forced forth a game smile. "No problem. We can drive back to town—" (And park ourselves at the No-Tell Mo-Tel.) "—and pick up a couple of sleeping bags and just sleep on the floor."

"There's room in the tents—" Ducky started. And stopped. He's going to hit 73 in a month. He'd like to make that a certainty. Stopping that train of thought was a good way to do it.

"Too bad Grandma isn't here," Lexi sighed. "Possums and raccoons? She would have thought that was too cool!" I just rolled my eyes. She would have.

We unloaded the SUV and parked it around the bend and set to making camp. No such thing as a pup tent—the smallest, a 4-person, was for Gibbs on his lonesome. (RHIP.) The boys had one 6-person tent, the three girls another. Whoever marked those tents had to be thinking Munchkins. Even six people my size would have a hard go of it. Even six people Lexi's size would have a hard go of it. But for two nights, it would work. Camp chairs, camp table, coolers of food—by noon there was a nice little city set up and we had a list of what was needed to make the cabin survivable.

And… we weren't alone.

No, not the possums, raccoons and other wildlife. These visitors were two-legged. A couple of guys in a battered green truck drove by, probably heading for the campground several miles down the road. They stared at our group for a long moment (until Gibbs out-stared them), then drove off. About a half hour later they were back, heading the other way. They drove past our encampment, stopped, backed up…stared…looked at each other…stared again…looked at each other again.

About the time Gibbs looked like he was going to go over and, ah, introduce himself, the driver called out, "Hey!"

"Yeah?" came the laconic response from the NCIS fearless leader.

The men looked at each other, then the driver pointed to the collection of vehicles. We had crammed most of the supplies in the SUV that was now parked behind the cabin, and Gibbs and DiNozzo had been the designated drivers. Abby and Ziva followed in Ziva's cute little Mini Cooper, and Tim had joined Ducky, Lexi and me (and the last odds and ends) in our small sedan. (Like we'd take the Morgan?) "How did you get all of that in those?"

Gibbs looked bemused and Tim and Tony exchanged "duh" eyerolls. Abby snorted faintly, but it was Ziva that answered:

"We took out the spare," she said cheerfully.

After a long moment the driver said, "Oh, okay," politely and drove off.

"He probably figured you're a dumb blonde with a dye job," I laughed. She just grinned and offered to drive us into town to shop.

Before I could decline (Coopers are dinky cars; where would we put my knees, let alone the sleeping bags?), Tony snored faintly. "Not even if you take out the spare. McScout says the cabin needs a new propane tank, so we need to take the SUV." He jerked his head toward the vehicle. "Come on, campers." He headed off, twanging the theme from Deliverance as he went.

"Do you want me to come along?" Ducky asked.

"Afraid I won't come back?"

"Yes," he said truthfully.

"Busted. I'll come back—" I leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek and muttered, "But if you ever suggest camping again…"

"It will be at the Marriott," he murmured back.

"Smart man."

It was a helluva drive to the only "big" town but at least Sears had camping gear on sale. I grabbed an air mattress ("That's cheating," Tony taunted. "We were supposed to be on a bed," I retorted. "Even-Steven.") and two sleeping bags that we could zip together, plus a couple of thermal blankets. August or not, we had been warned that it got darn chilly at night. We found the largest rental tank, packed it securely in the back, filled the gas tank of the SUV and headed back, hoping to make it before dark.

The CAUTION DEER XING signs didn't make it any more comfortable of a drive. "My parents hit a deer, oh, jeez, I think I was five? That was the old Chevvy, Dad was thinking of replacing it, boy, he had to replace it then, let me tell you."

"Your dad killed Bambi's mom?" Tony gasped in mock horror.

"Yeah, and Bambi's mama totaled our car, and that was old Detroit steel, not the TONY!"

My scream, a WHUMP! and the SUV spinning in circles as it slid up the road all happened at once.

"Are you okay? Are you okay? Oh, god, if you're hurt, Ducky's gonna kill me—"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," I panted as my heart rate started to drop from the ten thousand range. "You?"

"I'm good, oh, man, the air bags, jeez, that costs a fortune—" I hadn't even noticed the airbags had deployed in the collision. That explained the pain in my ribcage. "What was that?"

"Bambi's mama?" I said flippantly. We climbed out of the vehicle and looked around. The damage was contained to the left front and could have been a lot worse. It was still driveable, at least. Well, almost. The fender had caved in and shredded the tire—if someone could pull it out, we could pop on the spare and be on our way. The propane tank was fine; it had slid around a bit, but nothing was broken, dented or even dinged. We headed back down the highway to see what the hell we had hit.

"Hello? Hello?" Tony was trying to catch a signal and finally lucked out. "Hey, yes, we've had an accident—no, no injuries—no, we were heading north on Callahan Highway—no, I don't know if it's Old Callahan or New Callahan, it's Callahan out of Crossed Creek—oh." He gave me a broad, fake smile. "That's New Callahan," he whispered. "Our vehicle is at mile marker 42, the accident happened about a quarter mile back—no, something ran out in front of us, we hit—no, I don't know what—" He stopped walking and talking. "Oh."

I followed his gaze… and stared. At the side of the road stood a donkey, looking at us with a rather befuddled expression. "Maybe we gave him a concussion?" I said quietly.

"We, uh, we appear to have hit a donkey."

I could hear the incredulous, "Donkey?" without straining.

"Yeah, a donkey."

"Sir, are you sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure! I'm looking right at him."

"We don't have donkeys in the area, you must have hit a deer—"

His patience snapped. "Lady, I've seen Shrek and I've seen Bambi!" His voice went sideways and he did a perfect imitation of a green ogre. "And Ah know the difference between a donk'y and a deer! This is a frickin' donk'y!"

I shouldn't have laughed. But I couldn't help myself.

"Mrs. Mallard!" he called sharply, pointing to the donkey. I giggled. "Is this, or is this not, a donk'y?" He was still talking like Shrek.

"It's, ah, it's a donkey," I said loudly.

"Sir, there are no—"

I pulled out my cell phone and snapped some pictures. The donkey (or, "donk'y") just stood and stared amiably back. I switched to camcorder mode, but it was pretty dull; he just stood there and watched me. Come on, fella, you could be the next YouTube star!

"Trust me. Send a tow truck. The driver will see the donkey!"

After exchanging more pertinent data, we trudged back to the truck to wait. "Whaddya think the chances of reception up at the cabin are?"

Tony shrugged. "As good as we have here. There was an antenna on the roof—well, a fallen-over antenna. So Tim's great-uncle Whozits used to get one or two stations up there before convertor boxes hit the planet."

Nodding to myself I typed out a text message and sent it, along with pictures of the truck and the donkey (being sure to emphasize "We're fine" over and over). "Hey. Triple-A is here." I pointed to the tow-truck heading our way. Heading our way from the wrong direction.

The driver slowed down and made a nice u-turn to our side of the road. (Callahan Highway isn't exactly Interstate 10. No heavy traffic. No traffic, period.) "Folks have a accident?"

Tony smiled. Grimaced, even. "Yes. We hit a donkey—"

The man burst into laughter. "Donkey! We don't have donkeys here!"

Teeth clenched, Tony pointed over the man's shoulder. "Wanna bet?"

The driver, whose blue shirt had the name Bud embroidered on it (not sure if it was his name or beer preference), followed where DiNozzo was pointing. For the longest moment he just stared. And stared. And stared some more. "Well… I'll be damned." He strolled back to the cab of his truck and grabbed the mic. "Hey! Sheila! You'll never believe this—they really did hit a donkey!"

Tony moaned softly. "Please. Tell me you packed some booze. Any booze."

My cell phone pinged. I pulled up the message and decided against reading it aloud. Jethro says, and I quote: One damned donkey in the state and trust DiNozzo to find it. The deductible is on HIS ass. "Yep," I said cheerfully. "Ducky's got a bottle of scotch somewhere, I'm sure."

DiNozzo watched the driver poke at the caved-in fender; the driver shook his head slowly and Tony groaned again. "I call dibs!"