Scout's dishonor

Note: Here's a column I wrote for the Journal Tribune last year, and forgot to tack up here. Consider it a "lost essay," only not lost, and an essay just barely. Enjoy!

 

In a way, I’m glad I was never a Boy Scout. I’m sure it’s a fine organization once you get past the chipmunk-colored uniforms and the homophobia, but there’s something about wearing a maroon ascot that’s a little too jolly for my tastes. I’d always feel like I was a pointy hat and a pair of leggings away from being one of Santa’s elves.

 

They have a good motto, though: Be prepared.

 

That’s what I’ve kept in mind while making a list of things to pack for my upcoming trip. For the next several days, I’ll be on a cruise ship bound for Bermuda, and the challenge now before me is to select which belongings to bring, while not toting anything that I’d mind being stolen by a preteen pickpocket in Oliver Twist garb. In my mind, every pickpocket looks like Oliver Twist and smokes Camels with a cigarette holder. Pretty sure that’s the uniform.

 

Human beings have this funny way of being attached to the objects they’ve amassed. As traits go, it’s fairly unique among creatures of the animal kingdom; bears don’t line the walls of their cave with ceramic cats and birthday cards, and rarely do you see a beaver sporting a shiny leather carrying case for his iPod. When you do, it’s usually a peyote hallucination.

 

People stand out in this regard – especially Americans, who have been conditioned by centuries of capitalist impulses to define themselves by their possessions. Our attachment to material things is rarely more evident than when we’re cobbling together trip accessories. Does one absolutely need to bring along that lucky cow skull discovered while riding a knock-kneed camel through the Australian Outback? Most certainly not, but there it is anyway, stuffed tight into a suitcase next to the fishing magazines and monogrammed toenail clippers. Its name is “Betsy” and guarantees you a winning hand at blackjack, according to legend.

 

Not to pull the curtain back and reveal all my tricks, but I typically bang out these screeds a few days in advance. By the time you read this, I’ll already be on the boat, assuming customs doesn’t stop me for carrying aboard a fossilized animal head. Right now, however, I’m sitting in a room making a list of essential bring-alongs. It’s like a who’s who of my stuff – essentials I can’t survive without for the duration of even one week.

 

Now right away, that’s something which sets me aside from the cave dwellers. Fifty-thousand years ago, the very concept of “essential items” would have seemed alien. It was the era of the woolly mammoth, so the only real must-have portable possessions were basic clothes, hunting implements, and the body’s own vital organs. As long as you had a spear and a spleen you were pretty much all set. Never did a Neanderthal plan a vacation and make a packing list, and especially never did he carry around a suitcase crammed with Cabana shorts and citrus-flavored Binaca breath spray.

 

We modern humans surround ourselves with various acquisitions – stereo systems, bath towels, shot glass collections and ear wax removal kits – and when we travel, we whittle these things down to an appropriate scale, our life in microcosm. We decide, more or less on the spot, what’s extraneous and what’s not. I can go for a week without the Ninja Turtle action figures lining my windowsills; they’re decorative (literally window dressing), and taking a break from them might actually make me feel like a real, live, adult man. I can’t, however, go a week without any implements for trimming my nose hair. Otherwise it looks like my upper lip is being attacked by a pair of giant paintbrushes. At some point, without my knowing, this became an important enough accessory to bring halfway across the Atlantic.

 

Sunblock will prove to be an essential item, especially with my skin. My pigmentation is so white that it mirrors the pristine glow of a faraway neutron star – which is great for pretending I’m sick, but no so much for spending any amount of time beneath a subtropical sky. In about four seconds I brown like a piece of toast; left unprotected, I burn up in about the time it takes for Barry Manilow to sing “Copacabana.” Tossing the Banana Boat SPF 30 into my carry-on bag is an easy call, but again, it’s hard to imagine a caveman looking up at the sky and thinking, “Hmm, it’s a long walk to the saber-toothed tiger’s watering hole. I’ll get crispy if I don’t lather up!” If present-day materialism has taught me anything, it’s that the human race has collectively evolved into a bunch of weenies.

 

Odd how we rarely examine our attachment to physical objects until we’re forced to go without them. For better or worse, our identities are tied up with our things – our favorite armchairs, our grandfather clocks, our frosted beer mugs etched with the likeness of Rita Hayworth. All of these things in aggregate may not equal a life, not quite, but they do provide a backdrop for one.

 

Let’s say the human race goes extinct sometime in the next few hundred-thousand years. (Not inconceivable.) From the ashes of our once-great global civilization arises a new, intelligent species: Giant otters with enlarged brain cases. These super-smart otters develop their own culture with their own vocations, and one day, an otter becomes a paleontologist and examines the ruins of your former home. He’ll learn a lot about you from what he discovers there. From your DVD collection, he’ll know that you enjoyed French war movies and, randomly, season six of “Cheers.” From your toiletries, he’ll know that you were obsessive about controlling armpit odor, and apparently had a difficult time quelling those itchy rashes.

 

Then he’ll stumble upon your suitcase. Recognizing it as a travel item, he’ll determine that its contents were the most important possessions in the world to this now-extinct human: a Super Mario beach towel, a Fodor’s Guide to Papua New Guinea, and a weathered deck of Star Trek playing cards.

 

Brow furrowed, our brainy otter will roll out his clipboard and jot down the following: “Definitely a nerd. Has all the hallmarks of either a sad recluse or a serial killer. Could have been both. Pretty well prepared, though. Must have been a Boy Scout.”