the Lame

The girls only went on one hike. Before the hike they sat through some kind of boring compass, plant and animal identification lectures which took about 2 hours. We started on the hike which was looking really rocky and cool and then about halfway through the sky started dumping down rain with thunder and lightening. We had to hightail it back down to the cars and by then we were all soaking wet. I had just purchased a new raincoat which turned out to not be waterproof. It soaked through in about 2 minutes. Some of the girls were crying and being dramatic and everyone was telling all the stories about people they knew who had been struck by lightening at Girls Camp.

Some of the pranks were malicious. Someone put poop on one of the soap dishes in the shower, luckily it was discovered by a girl who managed not to touch it as she reached for the taps, but smelled it instead. Someone else wrote a cruel note to a adult leader and signed another girl's name to it. Fortunately, we saw it before it every got to the adult leader. Some girls must have been sippin' on Haterade that week. The girl whose name was signed was crying her eyes out because she knew who had done it and had been continually bullied by that girl and had just gotten on good terms with that particular adult leader.

Some of the innocent pranks went South. A handful of girls were dying to prank somebody, but the rule was that they had to get permission from an adult leader to play their prank. They had brought saran wrap, shaving cream, silly string and cornstarch with them to camp. As adult leaders we felt that they shouldn't prank the younger girls and were trying to come up with a solution that would please everyone. Some of the adult leaders were very reluctant to help out around camp and some refused outright to do tasks they felt were beneath them. In frustration, one of the adult leaders told these pranksters that they had permission to prank those adults. I was so tired of hearing the pranksters say that they were going to get someone that night and we couldn't stop them, that I finally said, "Sister so and so already gave you permission. What are you waiting for?" Those girls were up and dressed and armed in about 10 seconds and flew out the door. They got some younger girls to come with them and sprayed shaving cream and silly string all over the chosen adult leaders and then ran back to our cabin. We sat giggling and waiting for them to come back and get us with silly string and the like because we had sent the girls over there. In a few minutes we saw flashlights heading our way and suddenly our cabin was pitch black and filled with fake snores. The younger girls who had assisted in the prank came in crying. Two of the adult leaders had yelled at them. One said a swear word (the mildest one). One had an asthma attack. The pranksters and the guilty leaders had to go over and apologize to the adults and the younger girls who got yelled at. Everyone was crying (except me, I'm not a crier). I thought I was going to be sent home or have to drive some girls home in the middle of the night. Instead, while we were walking back and the repentant pranksters were crying away, I accidently let a loud toot slip out because I was so nervous and cold. Those girls kept asking me if I was nervous the rest of the week:) That was pretty embarrassing and probably belongs in the funny post. Luckily, coming from the family I have, I just don't get embarrassed that easily. I think my mom, dad and step mom knocked the embarrassment out of me with all their crazy antics.

The food was kind of badish. Everything was swimming with butter and fat and the menu was unbalanced. The kitchen often had too much of one thing and ran out of another. The ovens burned the bottoms of everything while leaving the tops raw. The four slot toaster one had one working slot. The flies were having an extended family reunion in our kitchen. The food was not to my taste at all: hot dogs, sausages, mayonaisy tuna, baloney, soggy egg casserole. Plus I had to be in there every morning at 6 a.m. to prepare food I wouldn't be eating. I did bring some food for myself and the cook did make me a bunch of hard boiled eggs.

I kind of felt like a combination babysitter/prison guard at times. There were a few nights that another woman and I were out patrolling the grounds at 3 a.m. and putting girls back in their cabins or breaking up some suspicious activities. (I don't care if people have same gender attraction issues, I just feel that a church camp is not the place to act on their feelings.) Then I would have to get up to work in the kitchen a few hours later. There was a lot of teen girl drama to sort through and I had forgotten about the emotional roller coaster that teens and tweens go through. I was mystified by some of the problems we had at camp that I had to get involved in. My mom said that it was karma coming to bite me in the butt for being such a troublemaker as a teenager myself. I hate it when she's right;)