Camping with the Missus Summer affords men the opportunity to combine two of their favorite pastimes into one fun-filled week: marriage and camping. Hey, it’s no fun to rough it in one of the area’s many fine parks without someone there to prepare breakfast while you’re off trekking through the woods in search of Bigfoot. Obviously, bringing your mate along necessitates a change in plans to a certain extent. Now, you must bring two sets of underwear, not just the one that would have suited you just fine all week long (after all, if you’re going to be in the woods with the game, you might as well smell a bit gamey yourself). You must also add to your “must bring” list sundries such as soap, toothbrush, and toothpaste. Women? Their lists are definitely different. While I did go camping with my entire family exactly once many, many years ago, I base this claim on a new piece of information. Just last week, a co-worker found a “camp shopping list” dropped by some unsuspecting woman. Some of the items on the list would raise no problem with most men: razor, shaving cream, deodorant, shampoo, mouthwash. After that, it gets a bit more, ummm, shall we say, bizarre? Body spray. Hair spray. A pink skirt. Toe rings. A bra… maybe (yes, that’s exactly what the list says: maybe). I’m not normally a chauvinist so I want to give the list writer the benefit of the doubt, and try as hard as possible to find any possible reason for heading out into the wild with items like toe rings. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. Snore….. Whuh? Oh, sorry. Must’ve dozed off. Okay, I’ve got it. 1. You can spray the body spray on a bush a distance from your camp site (downwind, of course) and that will attract all mosquitoes, ants, blackflies, and other creepy-crawly critters away from your location. Good call, bringing a bottle of St. Ive’s along with you. 2. If you find yourself attacked by a bear while hiking through the wood, just unzip your backpack, pull out the can of Aqua Net, set it down while you dig the book of matches out of your pocket (a Zippo will work just as well), light the match, hold in front of the can, press the button, and --- voila! --- you have an instant flamethrower bear chaser awayer. Obviously an essential item to bring. 3. The pink skirt will come in handy to flag down the rescue helicopter searching for you after you made that wrong turn when your wife wanted to hunt for another woman camper who might, by chance, have a shade of fingernail polish that would go better with the pink skirt. 4. I know what you’re thinking about the toe rings… what possible use can there be for those? Well, you’ve come to the right place for the answer. Let’s say you’re in the woods and a sudden storm comes upon you. You need to make a lean-to, but you’ve forgotten your hatchet and Swiss army knife back at camp (okay, the truth is that the missus took them out of the backpack to make room for her collection of three dozen lipsticks in every possible shade of color imaginable). Simply pull out your gigli wire (she left that in the backpack, thinking she could bead it with acorns to make a rustic necklace), tie a toe ring to each end, and there you have a saw to construct your emergency shelter. Once again, your wife’s planning has pulled your fat out of the fire. 5. Make sure your wife does indeed bring her bra (just tell her that in the world of camping there’s no such thing as “maybe”). Using your gigli wire/toe ring saw, cut off a large “Y” shaped branch, and attach the bra to the ends to make a double-barreled slingshot. This, my friends, has endless possibilities. A couple rocks snuggled inside the cups will drive away an attacking wolf. Or pile all your wife’s lipsticks in there --- minus the caps --- and fire away at any hiker who dares invade your space, and he will end up looking like Bozo on espresso. Even better: put the can of hairspray in, light it, and let it go. After that, remove the bra and use the branch as a divining rod to locate water to put out the forest fire you’ve started. Of course, there is a simpler way of doing the camping thing. Just remember two imperatives: don’t mix metaphors, and don’t mix pastimes. Too many cooks are a crowd, and wives and camping should be kept far, far apart.