No matter how hard we tried we just couldn’t get it erect. B was becoming increasingly frustrated while I, well, I thought it was quite funny. “Sometimes it just happens,” I said to him while trying to keep the mood light. Like so many men in history, my perspective was not what he wanted to hear.

There is no doubt that we had a severe case of a problem erection a few weeks ago and the timing couldn’t have been worse. We’d planned a romantic weekend for a number of months and had both been looking forward to some time away from civilisation to just be with each other – you know, romantically.

But alas the erection problem happened almost as soon as we arrived at our destination. We hadn’t been out of the car long at all when we decided that we might as well get the party under way. We both knew what we were doing so within a few minutes we’d unsheathed the necessary equipment and started going for it.

Everything seemed to be going quite well until it became apparent that while the desire was certainly there, the actual mechanics were somewhat, ah, lacking.

We tried different positions, and pulling and pushing in a variety of ways, but we just couldn’t get the damn thing up. We managed to get it to half-mast a few times but then it would just deflate on itself and we’d have to start all over again.

By this stage, B was very red in the face from a combination of anger, effort and frustration. I myself was also sweating profusely and was quite out of breath. Erections were never usually this much trouble.

B wanted to give up but I was too invested to let him cave so easily. “No” I said to his crest-fallen face. “Maybe we just need some assistance to get it up? I could pop down the shops and buy something perhaps?”

Well it’s no surprise that he didn’t like the sound of that. I think his masculinity was offended and his pride was hurt that it wasn’t working out the way it was supposed too – even though his erections in very similar circumstances had been successfully happening since he was a teenager.

It was at about that moment that I realised that only something serious could fix the problem – and quite possibly our relationship. B clearly was beyond caring about whether it was erect or not and the prospect of sleeping alone out in the wilderness didn’t excite me one little bit.

So I took the situation into my own hands and came up with a solution. “There’s still time to get to the shops before they close,” I said. “Let’s jump in the car and get what we need.”

So my friends that is how B and I found ourselves at a camping store a few minutes before it closed on the Sunshine Coast recently. We went there to buy some pegs and ropes so we could erect that pesky bloody borrowed tent that was being particularly bothersome. When we got there though, we came across a miraculous new invention – a self-erecting tent – and bought that instead. Now we need never worry about problem erections ever again.