Exhausted

"At least we won't have to paint at 11pm tonight." Famous last words from Program Director S, encouraging me through my exhaustion yesterday. We'd been up late on Sunday night, painting the code on the field and then finishing schedules.

As we left the dining hall last night (it was nearing 10pm), we discovered that someone had taken down all of the signs (the prayer sign, decorations, photographs, etc) and had left a ransom note at our table, identifying themselves as a terrorist group, demanding cookies.

Our oldest male cabin had chosen the wrong people to mess with. They messed with people who have more free time, no bedtime, a better budget and who are WAY more creative.

Cue to us at my kitchen table, at 11pm last night, painting...

It took nearly two hours, but we put together some very nice "anti-terrorist squad" uniforms. We painted shirts and hats, gathered sunglasses, walkie talkies, fanny packs, and matching shorts. We made several signs and gathered materials and made plans for putting it all together.

At 5am this morning, I briefly considered giving in to the ransom note and going back to bed, but instead, S and I headed to the dining hall where we took down their tale and chairs, replacing it with a red outline and a sign that read, "this table has been removed due to terrorist activity."

When we finished, we headed to their lockers, and put up another big red X and another sign that said, "condemned due to terrorist activity."

Then we tip-toed to their cabin and covered their entire doorway with a really big sign we had painted bars on with the message, "Camp does not negotiate with terrorists."

Our final act was to hang a pair of underwear (borrowed from my dad's drawer) that we had painted "Funk Master P" (the name of the counselor who had lead this bunch) and strung them up on the flagpole.

At breakfast, we had already set up the speakers and music, and one of the JCs helped us by blasting the theme song to "Cops" (downloaded the night before around 11:30pm) as we marched in, in full "Anti-Terrorist Squad" gear, and ambushed their table. When we got to the table, the music shut off, S blew her whistle, and we announced that we would not negotiate with terrorists while we ripped the note up in front of everyone. We tied a rope around the whole group and marched them outside.

It was brilliant.

Even more brilliant, was arriving to the flagpole after breakfast, hearing counselors say (in awe), "is this really happening? Are we in a movie" as they gazed upwards towards the underwear in the sky. Hilarious.

Yes, I am so exhausted I can't keep my eyes open today. But it was well worth it.