christ

Dude,

I haven’t showered in three days, no matter how much chapstick I apply, my lips are still comparable to an elephant’s asshole, and I’m completely and irrevocably in love with 9:30 PM ("lights out").

Being a camp counselor is rough, man. It’s also fun and mildly flirty, but show one moment of weakness, and those little fuckers will have you crying under your bug shit-dusted covers by day one.  I have maybe five minutes to myself a day, a clingy camper who won’t stop asking me if I like her outfits, and a consistently questionable selection of meats at the dining hall (corndogs, meat who’s texture resembles cottage cheese, etc.).  Since the start of camp, I've aged several decades and made up like, 18 behavior-related rules (never thought I'd use the phrase, "Let's please change the conversation from painting bears against their will, Cole").

I should admit though, it gets easier every day. I’m no longer miserable, just exhausted.  Because of my nose ring and the Christmas lights above my bed, the 10 year-old girls in my cabin think I’m mysterious and cool (they want to spend time with me??), and I’m slowly figuring out ways to cope with everything (1. eat 2. Hershey’s 3. in 4. bathroom 5. stalls).

When I was first assigned 4^th and 5^th graders as my campers, I didn’t realize just how young they were until one of them ATE the medal I made for him out of paper and hemp after winning “Best Glamour Girl” in our makeshift arm wrestling competition (his stage cross while holding the “Round 2” sign was d r i p p i n g with sass).  Luckily, I caught him just in time for him to spit the chewed-up ball of twine into my cupped hands, saving us, but most importantly me, a trip to the chatty and butterfly-minded nurse, who, within a half hour of meeting her, had detailed her husband’s 1997 foot fungus episode, called herself a “fat woman on all sides”, and asked me zero questions myself.

For the first two weeks, my co-counselor Scott and I are responsible for seven boys: Carson, Cole, Cooper, Kyle, Ryan, Ari, and Joe.  They like Scott better than me, but that’s alright.  I like Scott better than me, too.  Scott's awesome.  He knows stuff about starting fires, carving bowls out of fallen bark, and fixing bike helmets he’s never seen before.  He’s like a kid-friendly Liam Neeson in three-quarter length pants.

For a while, I’m not sure my boys knew what to make of me.  After all, my only selling points were that I could recite Beyonce's "Flawless" word-for-word and that I was capable of walking from my childhood bedroom to the Chipotle at the mall with my eyes closed, which did little good in kayak or archery instruction. But I eventually earned the respect of a few rugrats during rock climbing day.  Carson, the most critical of the bunch, was inexplicably wowed by my bouldering skills, which are just slightly better than his own, and he called me “practically professional”, which immediately melted me into a flattered soup of candy hearts and glitter glue.

I remained in a state of compliment-induced bliss until lunch, when the shitheads ruined everything by moaning about the gluten-free kid getting a different type of bread on his sandwich.  Each and every one of them complained that he “always gets better food” while double-fisting brownies and churros. These assholes desperately plead for medically-required dietary restrictions on a daily basis, just to get their grubby little hands on puffy fake muffins.

But their whining and refusal to clean up after themselves aside, they're the cutest little dick-kickers, so I guess I'll just have to continue on being their second-favorite counselor, tweezing out their splinters, facilitating slap jack battles beneath their bunk beds, and asking them to spit the sticks out of their mouths because I care.  I might even love them, for no reason other than the fact that I’ve helped keep them not-dead for the past week. 

I hope I’m good at this soon.

Please send whiskey to Avid 4 Adventure CMC, P.O. Box 741, Bailey, CO 80421,

Kay

P.S. These kids are o b s e s s e d with asking about the time and schedule.  You would think that 9 and 10 year olds would spend at least 20% of the time thinking about cartoons and superheroes, but they actually spend 100% of the time asking any of the following questions:

Are we there yet?

What time is it?

How many more minutes?

How many more miles?

What do we do tomorrow?

What time is dinner?

When's breakfast tomorrow?

Why do you have your nose pierced?

They’re constantly begging for information that I don’t know. I don’t know.

P.S.S. OH OH ALSO I got reaccepted to Columbia, which is kind of a big deal.  I've been waiting 9ish months for this, which means I'm officially returning to school in the fall. I'll be accepting any and all kisses and gifts (pizza) thnk u~