Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Invasion of the Pod People


At least, that's what it looked like.

As mentioned on a previous episode, my lovely and talented DW is the Brownie Leader for our local troop. This past weekend was the Georgia Koman 3-Day March for the Cure (my apologies if that isn't the exact name). Apparently, every year these great folks provide tents for marchers / walkers in cities-towns-villages all across the state. After the march is over, they donate these tents to another worthy cause. I guess that's easier than storing them and redistributing them again next year. Plus, keeping tents to use only once per year results in a pretty poor utilization rate. This year the receiving organization was Girl Scouts of America. All the various troops had to do was sign up and say how many they needed.

When we received the tents after the march this weekend, it was suggested that we set them up pronto to let them dry out (they kindly hosed all of them down before passing them on). Hence, the tent city that you can see in our front yard above. There are 16 girls in our Troop, so we requested 8 tents. I guess they had extra's, so we ended up with 10.
The best part is that the tents come in the Koman Foundation's signature color - pink. No, no "blush" or "bashful" (cite the source movie and you too will have admitted to watching too many chick flicks). Pink. Pepto-Bismol pink. What 6, 7 or 8 year old Brownie wouldn't LOVE to go camping in a pink tent. Plus, they are guaranteed to never be poached by the local Boy Scout troop.

It's important to note that we live in a gated community in the mountains that prides itself on very strict architectural controls. "Natural" is the operative word here. "Woodsy", "rustic", etc etc. There are about 8 shades of brown and gray that we're allowed to paint our houses. White wicker porch furniture is strictly verbotten. Clearly, pink tents stray somewhere just outside of acceptable exterior fixtures. We glanced nervously at each other everytime the phone rang. No one called to complain (thank goodness), but we did notice that traffic on our street slowed dramatically as it passed by yesterday.

Fortunately, the tents are now dry and packed away for some future camping adventure in the deepest darkest forest to be found. Or, perhaps back in our front yard again. We'll have to see how adventurous the girls are.

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