So I have a soppy story of two teens (indistinct age, but 16-18 ish) going on a camping expedition to find dinosaurs. Classic nerdy boy likes nerdy girl who likes him back, but they don't know that etc.
So one bit I'm struggling with is to come up with completely plausible ways to get normal (not rich) parents to accept they go camping together?
Perhaps an indifferent chaperone like an older sibling who mostly ignores them upon arrival. Though at that age, it wouldn't be unusual if they just went without issue. Are the parents restrictive for some reason?
Cheers
RS
Perhaps an indifferent chaperone
How about a chaperone who has to drop out at the last minute - due to eg pregnancy, appendicitis - after they've planned everything and made non-refundable bookings.
Classic nerdy boy likes nerdy girl who likes him back, but they don't know that etc.
I'm hooked already!
AJ
Have it as a group event with a couple of teachers or profs or college post grads and many others along, and when they get on site the majority of them will be working an established site while the focus two and a post grad or old prof are to check out a more remote site for detailed surface review of the site. Then the prof / post grad could either get too involved in the processing of what they find while doing the foot work or get injured and have to stay in camp all of the time.
The school trip reminds me the "winter of discount tent" story, well worth the read :)
When that age I camped a lot with a youth group. Liaisons were common and staff really didn't know.
For this story, though, I'm kinda looking for the innocent chaperone free thing. Are there some kind of badge that something like scouts work towards, perhaps?
How well do both sets of parents know both teens? What if the girl had a boy's or unisex name or nickname?
(doffs hat to EB)
AJ
Have them go to visit Kentucky's Creation Museum, where they can see the dinosaurs that Noah loaded into the Ark.
Any parents who believe that won't question two teenagers being chaste whilst camping unsupervised.
Who knew that "The Flintstones" was a documentary?
It may be a little cliche but making the nerdy couple paleontology students is a valid idea and why not when you talk about finding dinosaurs living or dead?
why not when you talk about finding dinosaurs living or dead?
The only place to find living dinosaurs is at the US Congress, the UK parliament, and Australian Parliament, and the Canadian Parliament buildings.
I can't speak to the UK and/or Australian parliments, but most of the members of the US Congress aren't intelligent enough to qualify as dinosaurs.
but most of the members of the US Congress aren't intelligent enough to qualify as dinosaurs.
LOL agreed.
most of the members of the US Congress aren't intelligent enough to qualify as dinosaurs.
touche
I'm pretty sure some of them have the secondary brain in their ass like stegosaurus was alleged to. It's just that the primary one doesn't work.
So the rulers of Iran and Saudi Arabia are modern and liberated by comparison? ;-)
AJ
@Ernest Bywater
So the rulers of Iran and Saudi Arabia are modern and liberated by comparison? ;-)
I never said that, I just haven't seen any proof that they're living dinosaurs as their governmental operations and decision makers aren't on such a public display as the others are.
I never needed a reason, just a general location when I was young. Sometimes my father would show up to check on me, other times it was an elder.
As for reasons/excuses, they are nerds, something the parents should be well aware of. The normal teen goto is to pick a different friend (that the parents would agree to). The girl in question would likely find it harder as they do suffer from a gender bias regarding taking care of themselves in the wild. That however is not an absolute. If the parents were old school hippy types, they may agree without a fuse. When in doubt, simply tell the truth. I think a lot of how it's handled depends on the parents background.
In defense of my suggestion in the OP it wasn't exactly clear if the nerdy couple were looking for dinosaur fossils or if it were just straight "hey look i found a cute dinosaur with sharp teeth :P"
No that I'm advocating blatant plagiarism, but 'Four Go Sailing', a recent story by HAL, had a similar premise. A very enjoyable romp IMO.
AJ
Class rich bitch invites nerdy girl to spend time with her at her family's summer chalet. Nerdy girl's parents agree because they hope it will feminise her and boost her self-confidence.
Bad-boy jock invites nerdy boy to go camping with him. Nerdy boy's parents agree because they want him to toughen up and become more street-wise.
You could write it as pre-agreed or a nasty tick on unsuspecting victims, but rich bitch and bad boy go to chalet to screw each other's brains out, leaving nerdy girl and nerdy boy together (perhaps stranded) in dinosaur country.
AJ
in dinosaur country.
Would they be spotted by the Doyouthinkhesaurus?
Or maybe cum across an Isitgonnafuckus…?
They're part of an organized dinosaur camp at Jurassic Park (like space camp, but doomed to blood and terror), but the inevitable happens and all the adult supervision gets devoured by giant CGI lizards?
("CGI" stands for Cloned Genetically Invented-monsters-that-aren't-actually-anything-like-real-dinosaurs-which-were-basically-just-big-chickens.)
Or maybe they're just responsible kids whose parents trust them to behave, or at least use protection.
Potential for embarrassing scenes when their parents just assume they're already fucking and keep reminding them to pack condoms.
There's actually three permissions to be sought (or four, depending where the dinosaurs are and/or how alive they are perceived to be).
1. To go camping unsupervised
(1.2 to go seek trouble)
2. To go out with exactly one member of opposite sex overnight
3. To combine the above.
Unfortunate, but simple fact is, each or every of those may be expected to be statistically significantly harder to obtain for a girl.
While it may seem that (3) is just hierarchical combination it's far from automatic. I would expect that oftentimes it might be obtainable only after the components are not only merely obtained but already tested.
(It's also worth mentioning the permission in (2) may not be transferable between partners. That Annie has stayed in Peter's bed overnight doesn't mean his mom would be agreeable of him going for solitary camping with Alice. It's expected to be even worse the other way, again.)
In other words, even patents who might be amenable about an unsupervised camping trip as such may be more comfortable to imagine their offspring sharing sleeping bag only after they are already known to have shared a bed and interviewed afterwards. Because, the worry that hormonal storms and potentially challenging environment may be added risk factor and/or the circumstances may be abused to overcome consent issues isn't without merit.
Expected complications here is, very few parents would honestly and openly communicate or even admit to themselves that's the actual problem, instead resolving to increasingly nonsensical excuses for denial.
Potentially deceptive mitigation strategies shouldn't be more energy consuming than the expected resistance to full disclosure approach. Unfortunately such resistance cannot usually be directly measured without significant risk of catastrophic damage to progress of plan as intended if not in its entirety. Indirect testing strategies are not guaranteed to be accurate either. Thus, the appeal of "easier to say sorry than ask permission" strategy is high.
Some mitigation strategies may include:
A. Claim they won't be alone.
A.1. Colluding pseudo chaperone. Trustworthy and helpful adult is recruited to cover for them pretending to be their chaperone, but either steps aside entirely or gives them enough space to be as unobtrusive as possible. Sure, they are packing a lot risk taking such pretended responsibility for little or no return. Older sibling is a natural choice here, or this can relatively easily happen if just one of the parents is unreasonable, and/or if one of youngers has deep relationship with a grandparent or other relative. The further afield the more creepy the helpful adult may appear, but a teacher or coach may still pull it off.
A.2. Double (triple, etc.) dating. Sometimes claiming they would be in a group of peers is enough. The group can then collude, disperse and/or recombine as applicable. This may potentially include colluding chaperones who go their own way using youngers for cover as much.
A.3. Parallel events. For example, there is indeed an organized, well chaperoned group going to the dinosaur country. Parents are led to believe the young couple would be part of that group, but the group may have little to no idea they are shadowed by the independent couple who may go to blaze their own trail eventually.
A.4. Wholesale invented context. Their alleged chaperone(s) has no idea they are positioned as such, if the person(s) mentioned are even real, or the organized group they were supposed to be part of never existed. Pretending interlopers or other manufactured evidence may be necessary. In borderline case even one of them may be surprised no one else showed up.
B. Alterations to events or activities.
B.1. Pretended alternative location. As in, "yes, we're going to sleep in tents, but just at the far end of Kelly's orchard for fun."
B.2. Pretended alternative duration. As in, "yes, we pack tents, but it's not actually overnight outside, we would be at uncle Ben's cabin by sunset." Sure, the implied presence of uncle Ben in his cabin may or may not be true either. It may seem gullible, but even a solitary couple's walk trough completely deserted countryside is easier sell if it's single day event. As if there wasn't plenty of artwork with nudity during a picnic.
B.3. Pretend alternative activities. As in, "oh no, we absolutely aren't going to steal pterodactyl eggs. As I said, we're just camping down the Kelly's orchard. There's nice lawn to play ball too."
C. Misrepresentation of relationship / personal intentions.
C.1. She's not a girlfriend / he's not a boyfriend. As in, "dinosaur hunters don't have sex." Or, "we know each other since kindergarten." (With may even be true, or not, but isn't actually consequential either way.)
C.2. "We are, actually, indeed an established couple indeed already." Yes, directly opposite to above, but in certain scenarios of the discussion hold close to full disclosure approach even wrongfully implying the couple in question already have sexual relationship ongoing may be counterintuitively helpful. Especially in an attempt to recruit colluding pseudo chaperone.
Thank you all!
Definitely food for thought.
I still haven't quite cracked it in my mind. The closest I can think of working in the scenario I have built up is for the parents to assume it is a school sanctioned trip with supervision, and the kids are lying by omission.
Very different than what you perhaps have in mind, but peripherally on the theme, and "based on true story":
Couple of years after dissolution of the USSR, in one of the splinter republics... the land was still in practice lawless, economy was nonexistent and inflation was at 10,000%. We were kids of the underground national independence movement trained to be spies and pathological liars, emerging from a devastating victory in a brutal mind-war, but otherwise high school was as high school is.
So, I had a girlfriend, let's call her Jenny.
I got her at the start of what correspond to junior year in high school out of a bet with another girl that I could in fact seduce next random girl coming down the hallway. Jenny was a slightly chubby girl with big boobs, long, slightly curly brown hair, absolutely no grip on fashion and lowest observed self esteem of any girl a guy could install as school beauty queen on a whim with just some coaching and political machinations, just because the above mentioned other girl snorted that getting in the panties of that ugly grey duckling was much too easy. Well, I owned the school newspaper by then so that was in fact easy too...
Most didn't know Jenny had lost a year jumping schools, out of reasons I never truly got grip on, but might have involved a rape. Yes, she was a very broken doll, but I got my fun playing with her even if sometimes with a pang of guilt. Because yes, I had my own moral obligations to keep loyalty at least as long I found the situation mutually beneficial, but she was just rationally convenient and I wasn't really nowhere head over heels lost in love, while she had successfully deluded herself into believing she was indeed.
Okay, nothing of that is of substance to the topic, actually, but perhaps helps to grasp the environment.
Jenny still kept in touch with her bff from her old school, let's call her Evelyn.
Since, Evelyn had become, or at least claimed to be a major starlet at the center of her social bubble to the point it strained her to keep the pose. She was prim and proper stunning magazine cover round cheeked blonde, her sophisticated style aided by pocket money budget unthinkable for most, provided by her daddy, painted for me as a patriarchal asshole getting rich in the hurry by all means necessary amid the ruins. She was absolutely paranoid towards him, and I never as much as saw him in person, so can't really know.
Supposedly, it was orginally Evelyn's own project to organize a three days weekend spring rafting trip for her class. For whatever reason, there was no love lost between her and their class teacher, plus whatever quasi-political high school society 5D shenanigans she might have been in the middle of went marginally wrong maybe, and the princess had disbarred her presence from the happening in a fit.
Evelyn still wanted the experience, despite, or because, seemingly having never stepped her foot where stiletto heels wouldn't be practical footwear, so she had ostensibly assembled an alternative splinter group, but that needed a dependable and relatable outdoorsman guide, and I was invited in that category.
It wasn't at all that crazy off an idea. I had respective experience done very much the planned trip a year before with my four year older sister and cousins, and that wasn't the only time I had been on a raft in the rapids. And while sleeping in a city flat most weekday nights I insisted on calling grandfather's farmhouse my true home. There, I had been wandering around in wilderness for miles and many hours at a time since forever. According to family legend even as a little baby I would occasionally disappear, causing total panic for everyone obviously, while casually grabbing a happy nap under the jasmine bushes in the yard.
So, on my end adults were rather concerned would the other, all a year older, participants accept my authority without anyone to enforce it than about my ability to take care of myself. On that note, Evelyn introduced me with some guy, supposedly her more-or-less boyfriend, and while a jock, he seemed reasonable, and so were the other two girls present. Supposedly there was a third guy being mentioned, while unseen, everyone assured me he's cool too.
Jenny's automatic participation was an afterthought for everyone. I had taken Jenny out to the farmhouse for a weekend already, and while some formal appearances were still made, there was little doubt left were she actually slept then, and Jenny's fear her mother would find out we had sex was long ago overdue. That woman was weird in her own way, but trusted me entirely too much, and knew everything of course, but even so I couldn't get them to actually talk between them.
When we arrived at the train station in the morning, and met there only with Evelyn by herself alone, demanding a hug for a greeting from me, I almost called it off right then. Almost. Jenny didn't need to tell me anything to confirm Evelyn's claims the others would join us at the other end was just little more bullshit. I was going out for three days on the river with two girlfriends needy in totally incompatible ways. And oh boy, was I right in my immediate assumption Evelyn's true plan included her going totally off the rails on my, or rather Jenny's expense.
We started further upstream and little later than the class was scheduled to disembark their charter bus, planning to stay behind, but spot them in front sooner than would like, and overcome once they stopped for lunch the first day. While Evelyn impersonated an extra big bag, Jenny was a little worried, but chances anyone would recognize her as we drifted by were minimal, and she was effectively a stranger to her old class anyway. Not "sick at home" Evelyn supposedly was by her class teacher information, while with her class as far her parents knew.
Both girls got additional thrill out from skinny dipping, knowing at least in theory that whole class could emerge from the curl of river upstream. And it was the only time ever I have vandalized a sandstone outcrop leaving a gigantic inscription trolling people I didn't even know. But if that's an excuse to help a naked blonde to climb up a cliff in a very galant but nonetheless touchy-feely way...
Well, I should leave it there, but... I don't know what the deal between the girls was, if there was any at all, but I failed to reconcile a full threesome, and had to deal with two decidedly unhappy women more than I would have liked. It was abundantly clear this particular thing with Evelyn could only ever been an one off adventure, but nobody was helped with that realization, unfortunately.
How about that: there is in fact an inter-school camping trip they are supposed to be part of, but something goes wrong. There's a still huge crowd at the camp ground because the leaving groups were delayed. To jump start the opportunity, another boy and girl have arrived with identical names to our couple. Everybody gets assigned to a camp area, but nerdy girl and nerdy boy were too slow when their names were called and the camp official considers the double entries a glitch in the software. The two of them wait until role call has finished, but it's not obvious they have been left out with all the departing teens still around, and on a spur of the moment, they decide to head out on their own.
Extra points if they lament all through the bus ride that there won't be any chance to do interesting stuff (like finding dinosaurs) at camp.
Another option is to switch the sexes, as my brother, who self-identified as gay during early childhood, first 'experimented' during boy scouts, which are fairly controlled, yet no one thinks anything about two boys (or two girls) sleeping together, as long as they're intelligent enough to not draw attention to their romanic inclinations.
If you need your male/female relationship, then play with the basic premise, where two gay guys trade their 'tent' with the girl from a girl-girl facility. Either way you handle it, as long as they have some assistance (mutual assistance is usually best), it becomes fairly easy to work out various possibilities.
The only option I'd avoid like the plague (cough-cough) is the negligent guardian, since that guy wouldn't likely keep his job for longer than a single camping trip, besides which, is a horribly overworked trope that most readers are fairly sick of since the premise lacks virtually any credibility. It's convenient, yes, but plausible, not hardly!
Most of all, whatever you use has to pass the basic literary smell test: i.e. does it seem sensible, or smell of rotten eggs? Two different groups working together IS a more natural solution, while a drugged out or negligent guardian is a weak premise, at best.
If you need your male/female relationship, then play with the basic premise, where two gay guys trade their 'tent' with the girl from a girl-girl facility.
Another way to handle it would be a joint family camping trip.
The parents on both sides publicly disapprove of the kids becoming sexually active with each other (or anyone else) but are secretly supportive.
The parents willfully turn a blind-eye to what's going on between the two kids unless/until they are too indiscreet about it.
I have a whole other also-unfinished story idea about joint holidays. Boy and girl, kids of parents who are school friends from way back and still holiday together, are uninterested in each other and it shows.
Both sets of parents joke they would be a great couple, and kinda joke they were made for each other.
Except it is all a smoke screen, they are really way more friendly than their parents would actually allow. But it's a whole other story!