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was littered with tent poles, tent pegs, pots, pans and other assorted, potentially painful, obstacles. I was almost done organizing for the trip into the woods and left everything in neat piles all around the basement floor. I could not see them, but I knew they were there, waiting to tear the flesh off the knuckles of my toes.

I stood at the basement landing trying to paint a mental picture of what I was doing when I was sorting the camping gear. I knew the lamp was on the shelf straight ahead and to the right. The tent was airing out over the clothesline I strung by the furnace, it too, was on the far right. The pots and pans were stacked to the left of the bench. The poles and pegs for the tent were the unknown factor I could not remember where I had laid them down. My boots were here, somewhere by the stairs, jacket and back pack were leaning against the wall to the right and my boots?

I crouched down and found my hiking boots two feet away beside me. I was so happy to find my boots that I began to hum and whistle and happy tune. I slipped them on and winced at the feeling of rough leather on my injured toe. I decided to brave the pain and lace them up for fear of tripping and falling in the dark. I began to laugh at loud as the mental picture of me stark naked, with my wilson' wagging, in my boots hiking around the house. I crawled forward reaching out in front of me trying to gage where things were on the floor and struck the tent poles, they uttered a loud clanging noise as they toppled from where they were leaning against the shelves on my right. I grew impatient and moved my arm out in a wider arc to cover more ground and found the leg of the work bench. I gripped it and felt my way up to the table top. I reached out to find that the lamp was where I thought it was. Gripping the handle, I walked slowly out to the stairs.

I placed the lamp down, gave it a few pumps to prime the fuel, opened the collector and then clicked the igniter. The element puffed and began to hiss and glow. I lifted the lamp up and went back to the bench to where I remembered where I had placed two Maglite flashlights. I chose the smaller one and turned it on to see if it had fresh batteries nothing. I had a fresh pack of batteries in the kitchen utility drawer, beside the fridge. I tried the larger flashlight and it produced a bright beam. I took both flashlights and the lamp and made my way back up stairs.

As I approached the top of the stairs, I caught a faint scent of something

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