A Camp Thing

If I die in the next day or two, it will be because of an incident that happened yesterday. And yes, when you read what I did, you will judge, but, I want the chance to defend myself.

My house is really clean, I scrub floors and dust every week and I always take out the garbage. I shower daily, I wash my hands regularly. I would describe myself as a hygienic person.

But here's the deal. When you work at camp, you are dirty all the time. As soon as you wake up. As soon as you get out of the shower. I was literally dirty for 4 months and there was no amount of cleaning that could help (and believe me, I tried). It's also really busy, and so, after a few days of running around like a crazy person, eventually, you just don't have time to worry about when the last time you washed your hands was. After nine summers of camp, I have never been seriously ill and my immune system has been conditioned to fight off even the worst germs.

So yesterday, after a LONG day in the office and a late meeting still looming, I was starving and had about 10 minutes. So I dashed across the street, picked up some sweet and sour chicken and rice, DASHED back to my office to eat it and get on with the other million things I had left to do. Right as I stepped in my office door, all of the random things I'd brought in with me from my car (including my food) were bouncing around in my arms until I managed to drop everything, including my dinner.

The rice stayed in the container, but ALL of the chicken landed on the ground. So I scooped it up onto the cover of the container, and carried it in. I wasn't planning to eat it of course. I don't have ANY idea when the floor was last washed. But the chicken is the main part! So I poked through it to see if there was any hair or sand or dirt and it looked fairly clean. And so I ate it.

I think if I spent my career in an air conditioned, regularly cleaned environment, maybe I would have thrown it out and gone hungry. But I have eaten more than one sandwich that had fingerprints on it because I'd been in arts and crafts before lunch and I have cooked MANY meals over fires with a stick as my only utensil, so germs I couldn't even see didn't seem to be THAT bad. I guess I will have to wait a few days to see if I end up with a tapeworm or some awful stomach thing...