This story originally aired on June 3, 2017.
In 2003, a group of four friends from various points of the country hit the trail for a bachelor party backpacking trip in the North Cascades. George Wing was the man who was getting married.
They brought all of the usual necessities for such an outing: tents, food, a first-aid kit. But George’s longtime childhood friend and master prankster, Kermit, decided to shake things up.
“We set up our first camp and I hear music and there’s this female leg protruding from Kermit’s tent, dancing in the air, but not really human, sort of too small and weirdly deformed. And that was my first glimpse of 'Claudine,'” recalls George.
This was George’s introduction to the blow-up sex doll Kermit had hidden in his backpack. The group named her 'Claudine.' She was their mascot for the weekend. They clothed her, they swam with her in alpine lakes and they used her to terrify a group of Boy Scouts.
In this story, hear how a blow-up sex doll, a plastic water bottle and a package from Japan are intrinsically connected to this long weekend in the woods.
