Sweetie, your feet are freezing

Bright ideas are all about execution; the light bulb, sliced bread, salad in a bag, uber, joining two sleeping bags together for ‘double’ the warmth. Well at least the last one seemed like an infallible idea at the time of conception.

The idea: Conjoining both our sleeping bag zips so we play big spoon and little spoon throughout the night, then rising in the morning feeling rejuvenated & revitalized only to go hiking through the incredible Hong Kong wilderness into happily ever after.

The execution: Heavier sleeper upsets lighter sleeper into a night of tossing, turning and awkward positions upon every in-eloquent toss and turn.

Upon morning, heavy sleeper (okay, it was me) may be a bit too cheery for light sleeper who may have been a tad surly upon awakening due to someone’s (let’s not point fingers) nocturnal movements. There may be scowling, dark circles and even sudden outbursts of rage.

Now I’m a glass half full kind of a person. But life as it does, sometimes uses these inopportune times as teaching moments giving us a hard earned lesson in what less optimistic (glass half empty) kind of people like to refer to as ‘reality’. Lessons such as; metal doesn’t microwave well, cold French fries don’t taste good reheated (taste testing is not necessary) and joining two sleeping bags together in a tiny tent during Hong Kong’s turn of season are not a good idea.

Now the wonderful thing about life for optimists like myself are that more often than not when we don’t learn our lesson the first time, when an opportunity presents itself to make the same mistake again, we often think of them as second chances.

So the next time you’re entranced in the natural beauty of a wintery mountain range and romanticizing the rugged isolation with wistful dreams of a double bed, keep some life hacks in your rucksack. Seriously, not everyone is a morning person.

Stuffing is not just for your face or turkeys

You actually start off as snug as a bag of kittens in a basket full of fresh laundry. But when your significant other makes his or her first movement, it tends to feel as though someone threw a cinderblock through your window in a well-heated house. Keep something warm and haughty handy, like a down jacket or a teddy, to fill that eternal vortex of cold space between you.

When our powers combine Join forces; bring rope, perhaps two small straps, and maybe even a few lengths

of tape to attach your mattresses together. Some outdoor equipment companies actually have made dedicated “couplers” for situations like this. There’s no way you wake up cheerful sleeping beside your mattress.

K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Thick socks, thermals, long johns and beanies. Simple. Yet somehow, joining two sleeping bags together tend to have a mystical obstruction in contradiction of experience and logical thought.

Coffee always helps. So make it.

Usually if you don’t know who the fool is by the third day of traveling, it’s normally you. In this instance of a double sleeping bag, if you awaken feeling as chipper and as fresh as daisies, most likely someone else didn’t. Now here are some words that I live by, under no conditions do you dare disturb them from their slumber. Ever so quietly remove yourself from the maze of double bag and ever so eloquently prime the pot so they can commence their morning with that big dumb smile of yours and a big cup of java. That, my fellow travelers and double baggers, is how you turn a frown upside down.