AUTHOR’S NOTE: With a humble nod to the late Stuart McLean, one of Canada’s greatest story tellers and humourists.

“Would you guys like to go camping on Cortes Island with us?”

It was our daughter in law Anya and of course we did. We’d been looking forward to an Adventure in the Red Racer, our 2001 T4 Eurovan we planned to travel across Canada in and now the bonus of being asked to go camping with Toby, Anya and little Freddy our bouncing baby boy grandson, all of nine months old.

It was a beautiful ferry trip to Quadra and then to Cortes Island on BC’s Vancouver Island, just east of Campbell River, the World’s Tyee Capital as they like to boast. And it was all to Mac and I landing in a provincial campsite big enough for our two vehicles and a huge family tent for the three of them. It was grand. We hiked, we investigated the island, we swam in a beautiful lake and had such fun around the campfire.

I figured out the routine of outhouses and so on, so by the third night I was comfortable enough when it came time for the inevitable ‘2p pee’ (love the alliteration, can’t stop myself, apologies) that I heard my inside voice say confidently, “No need to bother with the flashlight Tony, you’ve know the path, you’ve got this!”. And into the pitch black night I stumbled. Pitch black.

And I am so sorry Dear Reader there is one detail I must share with you, in order for you to be able to ‘see’ the full picture. And I do have to warn you

that after you’ve read or heard these next few words, you won’t be able to ‘unsee’, nor unhear the image I have described. I was naked from the waist down. Told you. You see I had spilled some wine on my shorts just prior to bed and I (thoughtful, as always) didn’t want Mac to have to deal with damp clothes under our sleeping bag. So I took them off. Actually, to ensure full description, I was wearing white socks.

So there you have it and off I went into the pitch dark night. To pee. All was well initially although my impeccable spidey senses were barking at me, “Turn back! Turn back! You are in peril.” And just as my inner voice got my full attention down I went, face first, on my naked front, losing one of my shoes in the process. Quickly, I realized things were not quite right. And indeed they weren’t. But at the moment I had a more pressing issue at hand.

I was hurtling front first down a steep bramble covered embankment in the pitch black night. Neither my penis nor my testicles offering any help whatsoever. As a matter of fact, upon reflection, I now believe they were all cowering, perhaps even telling me off in that particular inner voice a man’s genitals often find in moments of peril, and this would be one of those, “Why the hell did you take your shorts off, you damn fool!” That said, I was in no mood, nor position to chat with them as I was now hurtling downhill on my front, through brambles with absolutely no idea of how steep the embankment was nor what objects lay in my path.

I do remember covering my head which I think was an interesting choice, of the two I might have made. I suspect had I been twenty I might have made the other choice and covered The Boys on their perilous journey but I’m seventy now and chose to protect my head rather than my Vitals.

But I digress. Let me pick up where I left off hurtling face down, mimicking some form of a lumpy human torpedo, directly toward a gnarly thicket of old bramble bushes, which upon seeing me approach opened a tunnel and consumed me. I literally disappeared into a giant prickly maw, something like the insatiable blood drinking plants in the Little Shop of Horrors. And in I went disappearing completely from view. Had it been daylight you would not have been able to see me, although one might have asked about the animal that had made a tunnel into the bramble thicket.

I finally came to a stop and lay still for several moments trying to gather my senses and of course taking an inventory of the pricks on my body and my prick. In the silent darkness a number of thoughts ran through my mind,

“This is really dark.”

“What manner of mayhem is this?”

“Could Mac hear me?”

“How are The Boys?”

I opened my eyes and tried to get my bearings. And I couldn’t. I didn’t know which was which and every time I moved even a few centimetres I was scratched and pricked again by the brambly thorns.

I had never known such blackness, nor how disorienting it is. I could feel that my bottom, my dorsal ampleness as they call it in medical circles was covered in dozens of scratches. I couldn’t see them of course but they announced themselves, loudly. Every time I tried to move I was scratched some more. Every time I tried to stand up I was scratched and lost my bearings, the brambles holding me down, binding me in place as though I had been strapped in by Gulliver’s Lilliputians. I was Dear Reader, in a bit of a pickle.

Now this was not my first ‘pickle’ so I tried my first ‘go to’ solution for these type of problems which I have found myself in from time to time over the course of my marriage to Mac,

“Maaaaacccc? … Maaaaaaccccc? … Maaaaaaacccccc?!”

And … crickets. Nothing. Not a peep from our Red Racer. It could only be Mac to whom I would turn in a moment such as this. I was as you might recall naked from the waist down, with a tattered bloodied T-shirt and one shoe my only cover. I resolved this was something my daughter in law Anya must never see, must never be exposed to. A full moon such as it was, once seen could have never been unseen. But as I listened plaintively for Mac’s response, “I’m coming honey, I’m coming to save you. Oh you poor dear man …”, my hopes were dashed as I realized Mac would never come to my rescue. No, not for that reason! Mac was listening to her audiobook and would never be able to hear me.

So bloodied as I was, disoriented and blinded by the dark I resolved to embrace Plan B. But then I realized there was no Plan B. Undaunted, I resolved to move forward on my testicles (you’ll forgive me for my heightened awareness of the position I had placed The Boys in) one centimetre at a time, one hand in front of another. My plan, such as it was a plan, was to crawl forward three metres ahead in that direction, three metres across and then three metres metres down, a kind of grid escape plan. Trouble with the plan was I had no bearings, it was so dark I couldn’t even see one metre in front of me. It turns out “…in that direction …” has absolutely no meaning if you don’t know what ‘that’ direction is. But it was all I had. I couldn’t raise Mac, I didn’t want to raise Anya. I was on my own with this one.

So that was it, Plan B in hand and off I went. I’ll save you the details save as to say it was a scratchy repeat of each last centimetre travelled. I had been in this pickle for some fifteen minutes by now but at least I had a plan and was executing it. And then I heard Anya’s voice,

“Toby! Toby! There’s something out there.” her voice filled with the apprehensive tension of a young mother sensing danger afoot, all of her senses martialled to protect young Freddy. And indeed Dear Reader as you well know by now, there was something out there. Me!. I realized that Anya thought I was a bear crashing through the bramble bushes just a few metres from their tent. Indeed Anya’s instincts were correct, there was a BARE in the woods and she must never see it. Notwithstanding my dire situation I was not prepared to impose the unseeable on poor Anya and I resolved not to hail her to my rescue.

And then a breakthrough as the faint lightness in the forest revealed the outline of the F150. I redoubled my crawl and a few minutes later clambered up the embankment, grabbing the tailgate of the truck and lifting myself to safety. Breathing hard from the exertion and bleeding from what would turn out to be over one hundred and twenty cuts and scratches (I’ve resolved to stop using the word ‘pricks’ as I think it must be leading to some confusion). I was covered in the cuts, testament to my struggle and as I know you’re just being too polite to ask, yes my prick had been pricked (well that resolution didn’t last long, did it now?!). I crawled back into the Red Racer and finally found some rest.

I was first up in the morning to greet Toby around the fire with some fresh brewed coffee, recounting of course in some detail my ordeal, confirming the claims of injury with what was obvious to the naked eye. Toby listened dutifully, as one would expect of a loving son, giving him time to absorb the difficulty I had experienced, giving him a moment to reflect, a moment he chose not to use. Instead, he burst out laughing. At me. Not the sympathetic slightly uncomfortable ‘I am so sorry for you Dad but this is really funny’ laugh. No this was just a hard sustained laugh. My son, laughing at me!

And then Anya arose and joined us, going over to the F150 to pick up some milk from the cooler.

“Toby, there’s blood on the back of the truck.” she exclaimed.

“Oh that’s mine” I piped up, “I got stuck in those brambles last night and they scratched me.”

And Anya began to laugh as well, “That wasn’t a bear last night Toby, that was your Dad.”

Her laughing eyes twinkled in anticipation of a good yarn to come.