If you look up the term "camp counselor" on Urban Dictionary you will find a picture of me with my Chacos strapped securely on my feet, a pair of exercise shorts on, and a ratty t-shirt from my days of traveling soccer tournaments. Also, I will probably be in the middle of the 100-hour-no-shower challenge and burnt like a crisp (no matter how much sunscreen I slathered on before our creek hike the day before). I am a thorough-bread camp counselor and thrive in situations that demand the control of 12 nine-year-olds. I believe Egg McMuffins (affectionately called GEVMcMuffins at my camp) taste better when they're made over a camp-fire I started after dragging myself out of bed at 6:15 am. And constant sun exposure is my method of getting rid of my acne from Memorial Day until the middle of August.
There is no other way I would prefer to spend my summer. And, not to toot my own trumpet, but I am a decent camp counselor (my biggest pitfall is that I need fire-starters my dad makes to start my campfires...). I had campers poop themselves, took care of a camper who had a nail go through their shoe, and kept truckin' with my fire-made spaghetti after I poured boiling water all over my hand (pro-tip, don't try to move a hot pan with a wet kitchen mitt, is that what they're called? Kitchen mitts?). As a camp counselor you low-key feel like there is always impending doom. I mean, you are in charge of 7-10 children for six days, the likelihood of disaster is pretty dang high. And I felt prepared for whatever would come my way each and every week. But, sometimes things happen that you just cannot make up.
My camp has a cabin that is notorious for having a family of bats frequent it. We are vigilant with bat control and typically it is controlled enough that a group of campers can stay there for the week. Of course, the week I was put in the program with said bat cabin, the bats were ever-present. I got lucky that week and got to stay the week in one of our brand-new cabins that have extra beds. My best camp friend, though, was not as fortunate. She was assigned the bat cabin.
Typically I try to have my campers settled in and asleep by 10:30ish (in all reality, it tends to be around 11). One night I felt the relief that is campers finally stopping their incessant interrogation about my love life and rolled over to feel the sweet, sweet relief of sleep. And all of a sudden I hear the door to my cabin bang open. I thought it was just a camper being annoying and running to the bathroom in the room next door so I rolled over while simultaneously rolling my eyes. But, my rest was interrupted by the footsteps of ten people rushing into my cabin. I sat up, extremely confused (more-so than when I was in Pre-Calc, so, a lot) to my bat cabin friend giving me the look of desperation counselors don when disaster strikes. She quickly told me that the bats had not vacated the cabin as we had thought so she and her campers would be spending the night with my campers. This would have been fine if their cabin would have had one less person, but it turned out my cabin was short a bed. So we punted and my friend hung a hammock between beds to sleep in. The next morning the campers and I (we had the hammock hanging from our beds) carefully and strategically got out of bed so no beds would fall or hammocks would collapse. All was well and we went on our merry way.
During each day, ideally, we have "cabin time" in which campers can just chill in the cabin doing whatever they please (aka nap-time for me). I collapsed on my bed and murmured something about my campers asking my permission to fill up their water bottles and dozed off into the light sleep of the camp counselor variety. The next thing I know my battery-powered alarm clock was going off and I got up to turn it off before it gave me more of a headache than not having my two cups of coffee that morning gave me. Now, if you're smarter than I am, which I'm positive most of you are, you will know that this is the exact moment everything went to shit. As I stand up I hear a collective gasp from my campers and feel a thwack of solid wood on my head and the crash of an entire bunk bed hitting the fake-wood floor. I sat up dazed and was met with the awe-struck faces of my campers. And this was the moment I knew I was not as prepared for the disasters that ensue at camp: sitting in the middle of a bunk bed with ten ten year olds staring back at me.
Immediately I went into crime-scene-cleanup-mode (not that I've ever done that purposefully, I just watch a lot of Criminal Minds) instructing my campers to not speak about this incident to anyone else (the only situation in which I would tell them to say that) until I knew if I could get fired for almost knocking myself out with a bunk bed and enlisted the strongest ten-year-old to help me get the bunk bed on its feet again. Then I herded everyone out of the cabin and to the deck where we were supposed to be three minutes prior. I saw another counselor glance up with me with an arched eyebrow, likely because they figured I overslept during cabin time.
But, let's be honest, no one would have guessed the actual reason for my three-minute--lateness to our afternoon hike.
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