I am not particularly fond of outhouses. I don’t like the way they smell when I walk past them, I don’t like the crowd of flies buzzing around them, and not for one second do I enjoy squatting over a hole or chute or whatever form it takes.

I am, however, in love with camping.

This summer, my husband and I took a few weekends away from our TV, computers, and phones, packed a tent, a portable barbecue, and some food, and went camping.

Without the distraction of housework, bills, and the Internet, we found ourselves engaged in conversation over a game of cards, working together to prepare accommodations and meals (and clean them up), and reveling in the beauty of nature.

And then we noticed something all around us . . . RVs and fifth wheels, many of them equipped with washers and dryers, microwaves and coffee pots — not exactly “roughing it.” According to a quick google, some even come with DVD players and flat screen TVs. And spilling out of them were families who spent much of their weekend immersed in laptops, cellphones, or personal gaming systems, even as a campfire crackled at their feet.

Camping has evolved from lean-tos and fires, to tents and cook stoves, to lavish, 30-foot long recreational family vehicles with slide-outs and bathtubs and queen size beds. With that evolution, camping is losing its most endearing quality: time away from “it all” and time interacting with the people in your life.

The 40-hour workweek puts limitations on the amount of time that families can spend together. And the work doesn’t stop when you walk in the door. Chores, bill paying, individual downtime and the like consume hours at an alarming rate. Weekends are used to catch up on leftover tasks and errands, further reducing the time available for relaxing and conversing.

Why on earth would anyone want to bring that camping with them?

I’ll confess, each time we return home from camping I’m happy to be reunited with running water and modern conveniences. I most certainly cannot imagine my life without them. But being away from it all allows me to see more clearly that the amenities we scramble so hard to acquire also take away from our lives, perhaps even more than they contribute.

Regardless of what you may think of nude bicyclists, nude maids, or nudists in general (“naturists” for the politically correct out there), consider this the next time you step out of the shower or the tub: there’s a nude in your bathroom. You.

Granted, you probably have hair sprouting here and there, but ultimately, unless you engage in some unique form of clothed cleansing, you’re just as naked on a regular basis as the rest of us. Perhaps that means lunging to and from the clad to naked state in the comfort of your bathroom; perhaps it means wandering through the house in puris naturalibus; or perhaps it means riding buck-naked down the streets of Coventry in England on the back of a horse. Whatever the extent, we are all, under our various states of dress, as naked as the day we arrived on this earth: a wet, squirming bundle of vulnerable humanity.

So why not enjoy it — or better yet, take advantage of it? There’s strength in nudity. Just look at the attention these bare bicyclists drew:

Gathering June 7th at Sunset Beach in Vancouver, they took off their clothes and took to their bikes to protest our dependency on oil. Vancouver is the birthplace of naked bike riding, at least as social action; a group called Artists for Peace originated the practice in January (yes, January), 2002. Oddly, in Spain, the Manifestación Ciclonudista rode naked in June of that same year, also protesting oil dependency, but neither group was aware of the other. Nevertheless, the movement grew: the first international World Naked Bike Ride occurred in 2004, and one can now join a World Naked Bike Ride in over 20 countries around the world.

Granted, the power of nakedness can be used for good or evil, as shown by the nude maid of Tampa, Florida. This entrepreneurial young woman demonstrated her clear sense of the power of nudity by charging a middle-aged man (whose wife was away) $100 an hour to clean in the nude, and then allegedly stealing over $40,000 in jewellery. It makes one wonder where she hid the loot.

Has this naked appraisal of nudity left you uncomfortable? Perhaps not everyone is ready to enjoy its power. Fine, then just enjoy the perks, such as meandering along Vancouver’s Wreck Beach at Pacific Spirit Park in bare-bottomed bliss, or, for those of us who prefer indoor bathing, skinnydipping at Newton Wave Pool in Surrey. There, for the low price of $10 per adult or, if under 19, free, one can join the Skinnydipper Recreation Club. Members may frolic naked in the indoor waves on the second Saturday of every month from 9:30 to 11 p.m., beginning this July 12th. It’s taken a long time for the agreement to be reached: the club was told in March, 2003 that their skinnydipping privileges were revoked, possibly thanks to a story about their swims that ran in the local paper. It took a lawsuit to get their rights back.

But I’m not a nudist!, you may argue, as you clasp your towel more tightly to yourself. True, to be a real naturist, you must step beyond the privacy of your home, alone, and out in the flesh with your family or friends, or even strangers. Perhaps you’ll take part in one of Spencer Tunick’s mass nude photography shoots, rest at the Four Seasons Nudist Resort 40 minutes from Toronto, or join a Polar Bear swim in the buff. We each decide at what level we will embrace our nakedness, but the reality is that underneath the Armani suits, the Value Village vintage shirts, the lululemon labels, there is a stark-ravingly real, authentic nude. We’re each of us part of the nude club: it’s free to all, regardless of age, race, or gender, and we became card-carrying members the moment we were born. If only there was somewhere to put the card.

A co-worker surprised me Monday morning. She’d just been to Disneyland, and, motioning to my desk, said she’d be bringing me a gift “for my collection” later in the week. What was she was talking about?

I looked at my desk after she left: Okay, there are the two Littlest Pet Shop dogs, a metal pencil sharpener motorcycle, a chomping Scooby Doo head that rolls, a wind-up jumping alligator, some oddly shaped pig that spins, a squishy green dragon, a chomping Finding Nemo shark, a spinning flower (I rescued that one from the garbage), a rainforest frog with big hands, a gigantic skeleton pen (come to think of it, also destined for the garbage), and a SpongeBob happily riding on a jellyfish. Does that sound like a “collection?”

I also have approximately 60 stickers that I’ve removed from apples and adhered to the underside of my desk. Is that a collection too?

I’m really not so sure, in part because I used to have a proper collection of miniature grand pianos. I was so into collecting them that even my wedding cake was in the shape of a grand piano. I would’ve added it to the collection, but the wedding guests ate it. To me, the pianos warranted the “collection” term because it was a group of like things, because I actively searched for additions to the collection, and I was very particular about what I added. An upright piano simply did not fit, as delightful as it might be, nor did a miniature banjo. I was unhappy if there was no bench to go with a grand piano.

Collections are serious business. The odds and sods on my desk, on the other hand, are simply a pile of toys, and I a lowly consumer, not a collector.

To my way of thinking, a person must be engaged in the act of collecting to be a collector. I ceased deserving the title when I stopped purchasing more pianos and stopped receiving any as gifts. But with my colleague’s new light cast upon my desk assortment, I had to ask myself: do I actively pursue items to add? And the answer was Yes: at a garage sale I had purchased a smiling, monkey-like character, that spins around on the end of a pencil, and added it to my menagerie. And the day after the pile of odds and sods on my desk was termed “collection,” I discovered the new addition from my co-worker: a Shrek bobblehead. He fit right in.

Suddenly I realized: my co-worker saw these random tactile diversions on my desk as a toy collection. Of course. Yet after the miniature pianos began taking over my living space, I swore I would no longer be a “collector” of anything. So at what point do we consider a person a “collector,” a group of things a “collection,” or the act of purchasing, “collecting?”

I decided to consult an expert. Chris Hamilton, a Canadian children’s entertainer, artist, and art educator, is a collector of Star Wars memorabilia. Hamilton received his first four Star Wars figurines (Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and R2-D2) at the age of four as gifts from his parents returning from a trip to Toronto. He didn’t even recognize the characters. Thirty years later, his original and now wiggly Chewbacca has been joined by over 300 other figurines, along with vehicles and playsets.

Hamilton says collecting has a hunter and gatherer element to it: looking for the item at flea markets and yard sales for the best possible price is a large part of the fun. He readily admits to being a collector, though lately he has slowed down his acquisitions. “After doing the math,” he explains, laughing, “I got depressed how much money I might have spent.” He adds, “I bought two [figurines] in the last year. I haven’t been too thrilled with the ones they’ve been putting out since the movies ended.”

Hamilton used to regularly check out manufacturer’s websites, looking for the unusual and the new. He still enjoys checking out toy departments, though these days he usually walks away empty-handed.

He knows what an authentic collector is not, too Someone buying a bunch of somethings off the internet without having to search for specific items doesn’t meet the grade, nor does someone who pays top dollar for a new bunch of items. And the number of items has some importance: if it’s a group of Cadillacs, 10 are a collection. But for children’s toys to be considered a collection? Hamilton says it takes 50 toys that are somehow connected. I find that reassuring.

Collectors collect all sorts of things. Bandaids, carrots, toast portraits of famous people, coat hangers, barf bags, and navel fluff stand out among the weirdest. Why do we collect? For Chris, it’s the nostalgia, the thrill of the hunt, the stories that accompany each piece in the collection. Now, why someone would collect navel fluff is a mystery to me, but then, I’m not a collector. When the whimsical, tactile diversions on my desk begin to take over my work space, perhaps then I’ll admit I’ve returned to the world of collecting. Until then I’m going to blithely eat my apple a day, add to my stickers, and play with my toys.