Thursday's Quick Hits

As you'll see the first half of the day was very eventful, while the second half was amazingly not. Without further-ado, Ladies and Gentleman, I bring you today's quick hits:

Check-in:

• 'Hakuna Matata' is always a great way to start one's morning...
• Just because the counselors decide they don't want any runs to score in kickball doesn't mean they'll have enough resolve to make it happen. Laziness is abundant at 8am.
• Picnic tables at camp don't seat 12 Thursday campers with the same comfort they seat 12 Monday campers ... go figure.
• Even Thursday campers get lost and follow the wrong tribe. Either that or 3 or 4 kids decided that Choctaw was the place to be and jumped ship...

1st period-Games:

• My campers think that I look like Johnny Storm (see 'The Fantastic Four')...
• Two campers that I know from doing Recess Duty at Sugar Creek Elementary for the last two years decided to be onry and tell me I was a better supervisor than counselor ... and we hadn't even started first period yet! They always did like to harass me. I blame it on the fact one of them is Counselor Tristan's littler sister ...
• Today we played a glorified version of "Bird's Nest" with four tribes and then a version of tag. A rather tiring version of tag...
• Often times Bird's Nest at such a grand level is a game of who has the most campers in the right place/right time.
• There are many many many strategies to winning the game, none of which are technically cheating...
• Sadly, we could not play enough games of "Bird's Nest" to test out said strategies.
• Kimberly will not take any suggestions about counselor cheating in "Bird's Nest" with positive feelings ... until the fourth game when you're team is win-less, in which case she'll suggest cheating to win as if it were a novel idea that was entirely hers. Seriously.
• Drink breaks save lives.
• Threatening teaming-up with Scotty to call one's parents is an effective strategy when attempting to get a camper to cooperate with said drink break.
• Thursday campers worship a Grass God, which they take very seriously. In an effort to appease this God they ambushed me as I was laying down, buried me in heaps of freshly picked grass and attempted a live human sacrifice. Seriously.
• Games that require too much running in too much heat are generally games that all counselors feel are best supervised from a seated position rather than active participation.

2nd period-Swim:

• Busted out the huge pinkish-red 1980's shades that were my Mom's ... I wore them to the Hawaiian Luau. The EJ's (Elton John's) as I have affectiontely dubbed them are always a crowd pleaser.
• Apparently, I abandoned my campers today. Leading a large group of campers up to the pool house with Kimbo and as we got into the house and up this little ramp (like 10 feet from the locker room) I was about 5-10 feet ahead of my campers. Kimbo harassed me for losing campers and not being a good counselor or something. I didn't lose them, they lost me if anything ... haha ... seriously though, if they can't make it to the locker-room at that distance with the herd of campers going that way we should be looking into alternative forms of education ... *Grumble, grumble*a bad counselor, I'll show you a bad counselor*grumble,grumble*
• I went to the pool feeling so droopy eyed. Like barely being able to keep one narcoleptic eye-lid open droopy eyed
• Kim lays down on a cot and curls up, proclaiming how tired she was. I look around, notice how many counselors we have, how few kids we have and decide that a brief nap time to re-energize is in order. Laying down ont he cot next to Kim and curling up, I literally did fall asleep within 10 seconds (and yes, it is possible, and no I am not exaggerating). About 2 minutes later, Ken decides to be onry and towers Kim and I, shouting, "WHO'S WATCHING YOUR KIDS?" Kim and I sit up and chuckle ... I prepare myself to lay back down for a few minutes when Kimbo goes all noble on me, pushing herself up with great effort and saying under her breath, "I don't get paid to sleep"... Seriously, just 'cause she has a concious why do I have to? Haha... SO NATURALLY, the guilt was hanging in the air and I had to get up to. She could have just been satisified with taking our brief naps, but noooooooooooooo, she had to decide that was wrong ... geez, talk about injustice in the world, there goes my wonderful nap time because she has to notice that her moral compass is a little cock-eyed.
• Hopping in the pool was a shock to my system. Immediately I became quite alive and chipper ... in fact, I was, *GASP*, darn right goofy! I even sang along with two country songs from the pool PA, including "You ain't much fun since I quit drinkin' ", to Carley, Kelly, Melissa and every camper in the area.
• The pool felt amazing for the first 15 minutes and then I got pretty darned cold after that.
• Carley pointed out that I have small nipples. Melissa giggled in agreement. Quote of the swim period, from Anchorman, "And then my small little nipples went to France..."
• Carley demonstrated that it is possible to take one of the swim noodles with the hole through them, fill them up with water, and then blow water out at people through them (like a giant straw). Not going to lie, that just doesn't get old.
• Aaron C. got all smart on us and put one end of the nozzle up to a jet so as to continuously squirt water at people, often across great distances or at great pressure, through the swim noodle. That definitely did not get old, although it was discovered it's a two man job (one needs to hold it to the jet while the the other sprays ... like a fire hose).
• Sadly, there was one camper casualty in this experiment, but we're confident he'll recover as science finds a cure in the next 10 years.
• In serious news, a fun camper named Lauren with swimmers ear was driven from pool-side by Hurricane force winds produce by tropical-storm Adam Hospelhorn. As a side note, Jim had to ask her what swimmer's ear was becuase his brain is the size of a monkey's. Jim's only response to these allegations was: "That must be one smart monkey."
• In entertainment news, Kimberly Owens does not in fact like Jim's throw-back shades and she wished his nipples took the EJ's with them on their way to France.

3rd period-POW-WOW:

• Was called weird by one of the girl campers for the 43rd time this morning. I took it in stride. My therapist says that held-up well under the criticism.
• Played a name game in which you have to name everyone in the circle that went before u, the food they said they like that corresponded with their name (i.e. Jim likes Jelly Beans). Turns out, some kids stunk at it because they didn't pay attention at all. It's those people that are going to be making decisions for polticians one day. Scary.
• Had time to kill so we played Categories again. I really can't snap my fingers for that long. My weak little fingers wear out under the strain. I need a relief snapper. Unfortunately none were available. I felt like a Chicago Cub, and I cried.

Lunch:

• Completely uneventful, unless you count the fact we had a whole lunch-time discussion on the merits of strip clubs and how they affect relationships, if at all. David and I were on the same page the whole time ... that page being the correct and right page to be on.
• Kelly recognizing she was so blatantly off-target (mwuhahahaha), tried to offer a truce by holding out her hand and asking if we could just agree to disagree. I laughed heartily and told her that I much preferred open debate to truces. What's the fun in agreeing to disagree ... NO FUN AT ALL! Especially when you're on the right and winnning side as David and I were ... Yeah, that's right Kelly, I said it... PWN.

4th period-Video:

• It was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hot and muggy for soccer, so Kelly, Chris Meadows and I were assigned to supervising Video time in the basement. The video for today was "Ice Age". This first hour of the video, I wrapped myself up in a blanket in the back and passed out. I was out cold for the entire hour. AMAZING.
• Woke up, went outside to find it so humid I started choking and gasping for breath. As I proceeded to my shelter I saw a huge tree branch (like a whole 1/4 of the tree) laying in between three shelters and I look around and say, "Did I miss a hurricane or is the sky falling?"

5th period-Video:

• And by video time we mean sitting in a chair in the back by the fan/sunlight reading the new Harry Potter book.
• A fewe counselors came up to me and were like, "Oh man, you've got video, that sucks. Its gonna be so boring" and yet amazingly, up to this point, I have napped and gotten a chance to get through more of the new Harry Potter book and caught some of 'Ice Age'. U're right, video was just terrible.

6th period-Video:

• Plowed through some more of Harry Potter. WOOT WOOT! What an afternoon!
• Made Kelly take a nap, she was exhausted and delirious.
• Kept getting visited by counselor after counselor, and even Keystaff, searching for a chance to sit in front of the cool fan and get a chance to cool off ... breathe a little. They hated me. It was seriously cold at times down there. Here everyone was, in the choking, muggy weather, where there wasn't even a sun to increase their great tans and I was suffering in the cold basement ... forced to nap and read because of the "boredom". Oh what a world, what a world...

Check-Out:

• Dave whipped up some directions to his house, which we colored coded and idiot-proofed as best we could.
• Got my excercise in for the day. I walked from the check-out shelter to the big shelter where I signed out and them walked back to give Kelly a role of masking tape. It was agonizing on top of such a brutal afternoon, but I survived and I'm stronger because of it.