Camping for Morons ✓

01 : NO BEE GEES PLEASE

Camping Tip # 12 : At its core, camping is basically people paying to pretend they're homeless for a short period of time. Spontaneous trips are a bad idea. Plan your trip with great care or you won't be pretending to be homeless. You will be homeless. Homeless and dead most likely.

6 DAYS AGO  

Vancouver, Canada

 

"Jude has herpes."

 I looked up from the menu I'd been scanning. "Huh?"

 "Jude has herpes," she repeated.

 "Ew, what?"

 "Jude has herpes," she said monotonously.

 I stared at her, my expression was somewhere between disgust and shock, "Oh my God, how the hell–"

Callie sputtered and suddenly burst out laughing. She threw her head back, snorts mingled with her cackling laughter. I warily glanced around the cafe. People had turned their heads and were looking over at us. Her howl-like laughter was quickly catching the attention of the entire cafe. One of the waitresses behind the counter was glaring unhappily. If Callie didn't shut up she would get us kicked out. I smiled sheepishly, offering the woman some reassurance and turned back to my best friend. I kicked her leg from underneath the table.

"Ow!" she cried, her laughter instantly died.

        "Callie," I hissed, "you'll get us kicked out."

        "S'okay," she said and waved her hand dismissively, "I know the owner, we're fine."

        Even though the owner of the café, a stern frizzy-haired woman from Ottawa, was a close friend of Callie's family, it didn't mean she wouldn't kick us out. She'd threatened to do just that more times than I would like and it was all because of Callie.

        She was too loud and she didn't know how to be discreet. Okay, I was loud too but it wasn't too point where the café would fall silent like they did with Callie. Honestly, I was surprised we hadn't been banned from the café sooner. We were a little obnoxious. I hoped we never would. I don't know where else we would go, Lemon & Lime was the only decent café this side of Vancouver.

 "Why did you say Jude has herpes?" I asked, striking the straw into the lid of my drink.

She smiled, "I need a believable rumour to spread about that asshole."

"Ah," I nodded my head slowly in understanding. I popped the straw into my mouth and took a long sip of my mango smoothie. I shrugged and said, "It's believable, he is a whore."

Last week Callie had split with her boyfriend of nine months, Jude Sinclair. I wasn't really surprised, Jude and Callie had this exasperating on and off relationship that no one could really keep up with. If it weren't for Ethan Rosenberg and Santiago Garcia, Jude and Callie would be the golden couple at James Wolfe School. Callie was really bitter about it. She never understood what everybody thought was so special about Ethan and Santiago.

She liked them fine, she was even the one who got them together, she just didn't like the fact they were a more popular couple.  I didn't tell her I disagreed because if you saw Ethan Rosenberg and Santiago Garcia, who were crazy hot, you would instantly understand why everybody loved them so much.  I also didn't tell her I never understood what she saw in Jude Sinclair.  Sure, he was handsome, the captain of the varsity baseball team and one of the most popular boys at our high school but he was shallow and promiscuous and really slimy.