That's the night that the lights went out in Door County...

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: THIS IS A TWO-PARTER. GO POTTY NOW BECAUSE IT'S A LONG ONE**

When we were just wee youngsters, say, 13 or 14 years old, Nerma's parents decided that we were going to take a 3-day vacation to Door County. Whatever made them think this was a good idea is beyond me. At this point of the early 90s the amusement park Thumb Fun was still operating. We were going to spend Friday night at the campground, playing and swimming, Saturday at Thumb Fun, and then Sunday playing, packing up and making the 45-minute drive home. The cast of characters is as follows:

Nerma - my bestest friend since 1988
Spacey - Nerma's stepsister, also one of my bestest friends since 1988
Li'l Sis - Nerma and Spacey (and my common-law) baby sister.
Anal Annie - *Name changed to protect, well, us. Let's just say her hobbies included cleaning, organizing, and just plain driving us insane with her "activities." She was a friend by default, with her living next door to Nerma and all of our parents being friends with each other. She was also a year younger but acted much, MUCH older. Like, grandmother mentality...
Mom - Nerma, Little Sis and Spacey's mom.
Abba Zabba - Nerma, Little Sis and Spacey's dad.
Feewah - Me.

Friday afternoon we all pile into the mini-van for a weekend of fun. We make the 45-minute trip to Door County, find our campground and begin setting up camp. Nerma, Spacey and myself, being well-seasoned campers had thrown the usual "camping clothes" into our duffel bags, of course not bothering to fold them because, duh! they're camping clothes! Anal Annie, who had never stayed anywhere but a 4-Star resort, let alone in a tent with three other girls, had her brand new duffel bag organized, ORGANIZED, with NICE clothing, i.e., white socks, light-colored shirts and shorts, and OMG, little plastic baggies for each one. W...T...F... When the rest of us changed clothes we were lucky if they even made it into a dirty-clothes pile, let alone into their own separate baggies so "not to contaminate the clean clothes." Gimme a C! Gimme an R! Gimme an A! Z! Y! WHAT'S THAT SPELL?!?!?

Anywhatsit, by the time we had set up camp and gotten our sleeping bags arranged it was beginning to get dark. Abba Zabba gave us a handful of quarters and said "Here. Go play in the arcade." Being a group of 13/14-year old girls we took this to our full advantage. Anal Annie stayed back at the site to read one of her many Harlequin novels.

If I remember correctly we put our swimming suits on under our clothes and headed off to the arcade, where Nerma, Spacey and I won NUMEROUS rounds of pool, thanks to the fact that Nerma's parents had A POOL TABLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR FAMILY ROOM! I mean, come on! How cool is that?!? After a while of kicking ass playing pool and Nerma almost skewering me with a cuestick we decided to jump the fence and take a swim.

Sometime during our brief swim the night turned even darker and we began to notice lightening in the distance. *Note: I HATE STORMS. This is one of the only things that will make me crawl into a stranger's lap faster than a speeding bullet. The other thing we'll talk about later.

We gathered our clothing, which had been strewn about the patio and high-tailed it back to our campsite. Once back we put on our jammies and snuggled into our sleeping bags, taking time to make sure that we rearranged Anal Annie's socks and underwear because she was already asleep. We fell asleep about two hours later, after making sure that we behaved like ladies would while camping. You know, burping, farting, making obscene noises, naughty shadow puppets on the walls of the tent...and of course after the second warning to SHUT the HELL UP from the campground warden and the fact that the people in the site next to ours got disgusted and, well, um, left...

Suddenly we were awakened by a loud crash and flashes of lightening. Mom, Abba Zabba and Li'l Sister were asleep in their tent less than 10 feet away but there was no way we were going to attempt to make it over. The rain was coming down in torrents, so us, being the three smarter campers moved our sleeping bags as far away from the walls of the ancient tent as we could so they wouldn't get wet. Anal Annie slept through anything (we used to set up Barbie items on her during sleepovers) so no matter what we did we couldn't wake her to get her to move her stuff. Needless to say, she was pissed when she woke up soaking wet.

We spent the rest of the night screaming in both utter terror and excitement as what we thought was the storm of the century fell upon us. Anal slept. The next morning we stumbled out of the tent half asleep, thanks to the terror of the night before. Turns out a tornado had touched down just a few miles away! Fancy that! Anal grumpily rearranged her duffel bag and began hanging up her soaking wet pillow and sleeping bag, wondering why OUR stuff wasn't wet and bitching at us for not waking her up to move her stuff. Hmmm.

After feeding the troupe breakfast, calming down Anal and giving me an ENORMOUS dose of ibuprofen (oh, did I forget to mention that I had my braces put on just two days prior to all of this? My bad.) we piled back into the mini-van for a fun-filled day at Thumb Fun...

Tomorrow: Haunted Houses, Bumper Boats, and CUUUUTTIIIIEEEEEEE the Vampire.