An 'in-tents' experience

Of all the infinite mysteries in the universe, surely the biggest one is why no-one can make a tent that fits inside a tent bag, says Sam Bowring.

Last weekend I went camping in a tent which I purchased from a normal everyday tent-selling shop. For most of the trip the tent performed admirably, until it got to home time, and I had to figure out how to get it back into its impossibly small tent bag.

Nowhere on the tent bag packaging did I read: “Warning: Do Not Attempt Repacking This Tent Without a Degree in Quantum Physics.” Perhaps if it had been labelled thusly, I would have known to spend the requisite 5–10 years at university before making my tent purchase.

Instead my quantum knowledge is very basic - I'm pretty much limited to knowing that black holes are caused by densely compacted matter from a collapsed star. Except I now have a theory that black holes aren't really collapsed stars, but actually early experiments in tent bag technology that had to be shunted off earth before they went critical. This was my worry as I attempted to repack the tent – worry that I might inadvertently create a black hole that would suck up the BBQ and all of the possums, not to mention planet earth.

In the absence of a warning label, the tent makers should have at least included the necessary fire truck required to run over the tent enough times until it feasibly fit inside the bag! Was the tent bag designer frightened of anything he could potentially get his head stuck in? Was he almost killed by a reasonably sized bag as a young child, and therefore terrified of reasonably sized bags ever since?

You see A BAG IS ALLOWED TO FIT STUFF IN IT. That's part of the 'magic of bags'. Maybe a tiny tent bag is necessary if you're in the army, or decide to become an international drug smuggler and need something small enough to fill up with smack and swallow. I, however, am neither of those things. I'm just a dude who went to Jervis Bay in a Kia to drink beer for a weekend! I didn't try to fit the fishing poles in the glove compartment, so WHY WOULD I TRANSPORT MY TENT IN THIS STUPID TENT BAG?

Rating: Tent bags receive three broken tent pegs, or ½ a star.