Long Story Short ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- summer camp and the many reasons why it sucks In the interest of trying to suck it up and not be such a whiney, crampy baby (side note: SERIOUSLY??? Why the cramps before the blood?) I have decided to detail my experience at sleepover camp. The summer between third and fourth grade my parents dropped a bomb � they were sending my brother and I to summer camp for two weeks in the month of August. Never having been to summer camp we were both horrified. I think the most horrifying part was that they never asked us if we wanted to go, or consulted us on what type of camp would be ideal. It was just �Here�s the brochure. Start packing!� Of course now I know their motive � time without kids. But at the time I couldn�t fathom what they were thinking. I read the brochure and my stomach churned with nerves � daily sports? Cabins shared by upwards of ten girls? Morning wake up call at 7:30 AM? To a trumpet call? Ugh. Nightmare. It was only for two weeks and not the typical four to six that the majority of other campers were signed on for, but it still seemed like an eternity. I vividly remember the ride up to the camp. I sat in the big back of our Mercury Sable, the trunk seat that faced out the rear of the car, and listened to �Toy Soldiers� on my Walkman � the song most recently sampled by Eminem. I was dreading our arrival at camp and inevitable abandonment by my parents. I had good reason to be nervous because those two weeks remain the most memorable and least enjoyable of my young life. I have never been much of an athlete � not because I am uncoordinated, more because sports have just never been my thing. I definitely enjoy playing sports and outdoor games now, but at a younger age there was something terrifying about them. I always feared that I would throw the ball to the wrong base, or kick the ball to the wrong person. My basic fear was my lack of knowledge of many of the rules. Of course I never tried to learn the rules � I had some kind of mental block when it came to sports. I did love jazz dancing and gymnastics, two extracurricular activities that I pursued on my own time. My father did not consider these to be �real� sports and therefore signed me up for any sport-related activity that he could. Hence the summer camp that he chose. My brother did not share my sports-phobia but he did share my love of not being sent away by our parents to spend two weeks fending for ourselves with strangers. So yeah, he wasn�t thrilled either. For two weeks I woke up extremely early, ate crap cafeteria food, played sports all day long, and waited for those two weeks to end. Occasionally my brother and I would bump into each other � he being in a higher level of campers than me and thus on a different part of the campus, we almost never saw each other. When we did we would exchange miserable half-smiles and ask,� How�s it going?� each replying with half-hearted enthusiasm that we were having a �great� time. Somehow it seemed better to fake that we were having a good time than to admit to each other the agony that was summer camp. I couldn�t have been there more than a week when I pulled out my old tried and true defense mechanism: faking sick. My mother, being an RN, was convinced that her own children could never pull a fake sick routine with her because she knew better. Sadly the majority of the times that I missed school as a kid I was faking. I had a few serious bouts with pneumonia but otherwise nothing worth staying home over. To this day my mother believes that only when I am deathly ill do I get a fever because I never had fevers when I was �sick� as a kid. I got to move my sleeping bag up to the medical quarters and hang out and read and generally laze about instead of having to participate in the obscene number of rituals that were required on a daily basis. The schedule for kids was demanding and exhausting, presumably to knock us all out at the end of the day and prevent escape. Moving my sleeping quarters was a nice change too because I managed to escape my cabin. I wasn�t a total outcast at camp and had a few good friends in the cabin next door to mine. However, my own cabin was a nightmare. We had two �lifers� � girls that had been coming to the same summer camp every summer, all summer long, for years. One was a small Asian girl and the other a burly redhead. I can�t remember their names but will call them Bitch and Fatty. They were the best of friends and took camp life very seriously. And early on in my stay at Camp I was guilty of an infraction: I fucked up our chore score. Every Saturday was chores day. Each of us had our name on a list and each week the chore we were assigned would change. My first week at camp my assigned chore was emptying the trashcan. Okay, so I remember not fully grasping the point of chore day � you did your chore and then got a score for it, a one to a ten with ten meaning you�d done a really good job. So I emptied the trash, I think, but then later blew my nose and threw a Kleenex in the trashcan. When our cabin was inspected there was a disaster: instead of the pristine 10, I earned my cabin a 9 for my chore. And Christ, this became a HUGE deal. I was reprimanded by my counselor and then, worst of all, after I ducked my head in shame, I glanced up to see Bitch giving me one of those �I hate you, you�re retarded� twisted up goof faces � the kind you make for the benefit of your friends but don�t want the recipient to catch you making. I was mortified. Not only did I cost my cabin a whole point in trashcan emptying, but now my cabin hated me. Suck. It was either that same night or a few nights later when the worst part of camp happened. It was after lights out and all my cabin mates and I were in our bunks. The two lifers were talking to each other and decided to see if any of the rest of us was still awake. They called out to each of us in turn and nobody responded. They called out my name and I stayed quiet, for some reason afraid to answer. Once they had established that we were all �asleep� they began saying goodnight to us. �Goodnight Sarah� �Goodnight Becky� �Goodnight Carly� �NO! BAD night Carly� What followed was what felt like an eternity of them badmouthing me, talking about how much they disliked me, and generally making me feel like absolute shit. The only direct quote I remember is the �Bad night Carly�, and that they decided that they hated me so much they wouldn�t even say my name but would instead call me �c�. Lamely I just lay there silently, trying not to move so they wouldn�t know I was awake. A few days later, when I decided I didn�t want to participate in that day�s activities, I basically disappeared and went back to my cabin to lie down. As I was lying there I kept thinking how much I hated Bitch and Fatty, how mean both were to me. I glanced over at Fatty�s bunk area and she had left her camp store voucher on the ground. These things were valuable as they allowed you to purchase candy and soda at the camp store, since campers were not allowed to carry cash. Each time they were punched you spent a little bit more money. Being angry and passive aggressive I cut up her camp store voucher and tucked it into her Band-Aid container. In retrospect I probably should have thrown it away entirely but at the time I think I kind of wanted her to know that someone had done that to her on purpose. When the damage was discovered our counselor questioned everyone in the cabin separately. I denied my involvement of course and she couldn�t prove anything. I think she even said, �You wouldn�t lie about this would you?� I got away with it for the most part. I think everyone knew who did it but there wasn�t much they could do in the way of punishment. I was already pretty miserable. In those two weeks I also stole a few things from Fatty � nothing I wanted, of course. I would take just one of a few of her pairs of earrings because she left them out carelessly. I don�t remember what else I took but it all ended up in the garbage. I didn�t want the souvenirs; I just wanted to drive her nuts. As the end of my two weeks neared it became time to lament that we had to leave. Except I didn�t do that. Bitch was scheduled to leave on the same day that I was after spending four weeks at camp. She had called her parents and begged them to let her stay an additional two weeks to be with Fatty but her parents had said no. She cried and said, �I hate you� into the phone. Lucky parents. Leaving camp was the greatest day of my summer. My parents showed up looking rested and happy. My brother and I were in excellent spirits because we were free! I did have some fun times at camp, and the girls I hung around with were pretty and nice. I even had a pseudo-boyfriend Geoff who I liked a lot. But the parts that stand out in my mind are the ones where I felt isolated and scared. I had never been put in a position like that and I�m not sure that I have since. I�m sure that a lot of my bad experience came from going into camp dreading it. And seriously it�s just SUMMER CAMP. Still, it sucked. So WAH! 4:31 p.m. - 2005-02-28 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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