WANDA'S WORLD

I can tell that summer has arrived. The corn crop is peeking up through the soil, the birds keep trying to build a nest on top of our porch light, and my husband has found our tent. No matter how well I try to hide that thing, he always manages to dig it out.
I'm just not much of an out-doorsy person. Oh, I like to go for a walk, or putter around the yard, or even have a picnic in the park. But my idea of “camping” is to cook burgers on our backyard gas grill and sit on a chaise lounge on the patio to drink my iced tea (within 10 feet of an indoor bathroom).
I have a hard time getting excited about sleeping outdoors in a canvas tepee. If you can't even keep the neighbor's cat out, why would you tempt a raccoon or a grizzly bear! And my philosophy is, if Rocky and Smokey want to break in and eat our food, be my guest.
After all, if they enjoy “Chicken a la Grit,” that timeless camping favorite of chicken breast and vegetables wrapped in foil and buried in an underground sand pit with hot coals for eight hours, I say let them have it. There's a reason God gave us microwave ovens and I don't plan on being ungrateful.
Maybe camping is just a guy thing, something left over from caveman days when it was the man's job to provide shelter and food from the wilderness while women stayed behind to sew together the latest style in designer loin cloths.
In a yearly ritual, my husband cleans out the garage and every year he excitedly drags the tent out of its hiding (I mean storage) place. He reminisces about past Boy Scout camping trips or the time Junior and his little friends pitched the tent in our backyard.
He always comes to the same conclusion: the tent needs to be “aired out.” In other words, either we need to pitch the tent in our backyard or we need to go camping. Luckily, talking about it is as far as it gets anymore.
However, I hear that camping has become much more sophisticated since that summer long ago when father and son took off for Camp Itchy-Gritty to spent a weekend with the scout troop.
Tents practically pop up on their own now. No more losing your thumb nail when Junior, wielding an oversized hammer, mistakes your thumb for a tent stake.
Compact backpacks, complete with all the extras like thermos, compass, cookware and tent, now weigh less than five pounds. No more toting 75 pounds of camping items into the woods on your bad back and then having the family carry you back out on a stretcher made of tree branches and little Susie's Barbie sleeping bag.
For a mere $149 you can purchase a hand-held global positioning satellite to help you determine your location. No more wandering aimlessly in circles, arguing over who was supposed to mark the trail and which constellation contains the North Star. I understand this mini-satellite also comes in handy for locating the nearest Pizza Hut.
This allows you to make use of another modern-day camping utensil - the cell phone. You'll want to use it to call that Pizza Hut you found using the global positioning satellite.
After all, a hot pizza delivered right to your tepee door will come in handy when you forget where you built that underground charcoal pit for your foil-wrapped, Spam-Burger Surprise!