The Tale of "The Tent of the Anti-Christ"

And so the story starts about 3 years previous to this day...

As we all know, free is better than not free. Who cares what you're getting as long as it's free, right?...Wrong. Sometimes those free items are free for a reason and are better left being free to someone else. Are you following me?

I must say that I am a strong supporter of free and I frequent craigslist.com's free section quite often. I, myself have found some cool free stuff. Not only do I regularly check it, but my wonderful, free seeking husband does as well.

One particular evening (while I was out of town) Nate was doing his regular check of craigslist free section when he came upon the title, "The Tent of the Anti-Christ... FREE". Anything that says Anti-Christ can't be good, but it does say the word FREE and how bad can free be? And so the internal struggle continues with Nate. To click or not to click, that is the question. Finally, the word "FREE"became too compelling for Nate's inner free seeker and he clicked.

The page opens up and in front of Nate is a long detailed story about this tent that a man had bought and how this tent has brought him much grief and pain. Not only was this story long and drawn out, but it was also written in scripture form; something to the effect of, "And it came to pass that there was a tent. And this tent had wrought much sorrow and grief against his owner, for this tent was called the tent of the Anti-Christ". This man goes on to explain how he's tried, on several occasions, to set this tent up and each time he's failed miserably.

Due to the fact that this tent is un-set-up-able he wants to give it away to someone, anyone, who'd be willing to take this devil tent away. The only catch to getting the free tent was to respond back to him in scripture form why you deserve the tent.

Now Nate, being the son of his Father, has an inherited love of tents. And Nate, being a man who likes free, could not deny his desire for a free tent. And Nate, not having much to do and trying to fill the void missing his wife came up with an awesome and clever response which still makes me laugh to this day.

Needless to say, Nate "won" the tent and he became the new proud owner of the "tent of the Anti-Christ".

The "tent of the Anti-Christ" has found a new home at the bottom of our storage room and it has been sitting there patiently waiting to be set up for about 3 years... that was until Nate became inspired by his brothers blog . So Nate decided to pull out the massive tent and try to set it up. After all, it can't be that hard to set up, could it? I'll let you be the judge.

5:30 pm- Nate pulls the tent out eager and excited to face the challenge of the "tent of the Anti-Christ".
Status of the tent: Out and ready to go. The score: Nate- 0, the tent- 0

6:00 pm- my brother in law walks over to get in on the tent action. After all, two heads are better than one.
Status of the tent: piled up on the ground. Score: Nate- 0 points, the tent- 1 point

6:30 pm...7:00 pm...
7:30 pm...
8:00 pm- despite what it may look like, Nate is not tying a noose. He's frustrated, but not that frustrated. My brother in law has given up, but my honey is bound and determined... this tent will go up.

Status of the tent: still on the ground. Score: Nate- 1 point for determination, the tent- quickly climbing to 5 points

8:25 pm-Nate threatens me with my life if I don't put away the camera. So I kindly oblige, but not before I take another picture.

8:30 pm- Nate decides to try the aerial approach and steadies the poles with a rope hanging from the tree. Of course it would be much easier to set this tent up with two sets of hands instead of one, but if I was helping set up the tent who would be taking the pictures. I play a very important role in this whole ordeal. I shout words of encouragement to let Nate now he has my full support.

Status of the tent: flat on the ground.

Score: Nate- 2 points for his skills and ingenuity, and 1 extra bonus point for bending over (wink, wink. Nudge, nudge), plus another 2 points for having to be married to me. The tent- 6 points. Me: negative 2 points for sexual harassment and untimely sarcasm.

9:00 pm- Daylight's fading fast and the sprinklers are about to come on. Nate reaches the sad realization that this tent might never fulfill its full potential as a tent and may forever be used as a tarp or (if we don't have any money) curtains. In defeat, he packs away the tent after 3 and 1/2 hour battle.

Final score: Nate-5 points. The tent-7 points

Nate may have lost the battle with the "tent of the Anti-Christ", but the war is definitely not over. I'm sure Nate still has some more fight left in him. And for those of you who are interested in reading Nates response to the craigslist add that won him this cursed tent just let me know. I have it saved and I'll post it.