Camp Pranks

Last year staff thought it was funny to ambush other staff, pick them up, carrying them across camp screaming and throw them in the lake. That's not a funny prank for so many reasons I don't have enough room to type them all. So at training this year I let the new staff know that if they wanted to pull a prank, they had to get permission from me or Program Director S.

The staff this summer has been creative without being disrespectful, unsafe or destructive. The girls have decorated the boys' cabins with Jonas Brothers posters, replaced tables in the dining hall with canoes, and last week, one of the girls' groups got ready for bed early, snuck into a boys' cabin and hid under their beds. When the boys came in, the girls grabbed their ankles and scared them.

This week, the same counselor who pulled the ankle prank planned to do it again, however, her campers were a little younger and got so excited about the prank that night that they ended up telling the male counselors. I heard this story as they were getting ready for bed on Wednesday night and also found out they were going to wait until the next night to surprise the boys. So I ran over to Counselor J and told him what was going on and that if his boys could get ready quickly enough, I would stall the girls and they could pull the prank on them! I've never seen little boys get ready for bed that quickly! As the girls got ready to head back to their cabin, S and I ran outside and stood in the dark waiting to hear the reaction. Deafening screams followed shortly afterwards by a parade of victorious boys was absolutely priceless. We couldn't stop laughing. It was awesome!

On Thursday morning, the male staff bathroom (not to mention the entire downstairs) was filled with the worst smell I'd ever smelled in my whole life. The bloated, rotting carcass of an enormous dead fish was laying in one of the showers. The female counselors that put it there didn't realize just how much it would decompose in just one night. They also didn't realize that when you pull an unauthorized prank at camp, you end up spending your break scrubbing the bathroom with bleach. It was kind of hilarious overall though.

On Friday morning, my dad and I were heading to breakfast. The dining hall is about 100 yards from my house, maybe even less than that, but my dad is like a kid with a new toy and so he drives the 4 wheeler there every morning. He offered me a ride and just as we stepped out of the front door, there was the 4 wheeler, completely covered in plastic wrap. As my dad whined "Who would do that to my 4 wheeler?!?" I noticed that almost all of the surrounding staff cars had also been wrapped. And when we got to the dining hall, where chairs had been put on top of the tables and then tightly wrapped with plastic wrap. I couldn't stop laughing. I think that was the best prank yet. I knew right away that it had to be the Work Crew. S and I had attempted to plastic wrap a few different things at other times this summer. But the giant roll of plastic wrap is SUPER heavy and very hard to maneuver. The Work Crew is mostly teenage boys, lead by A, who is a strong guy, so it had to be them. I congratulated them on a great prank and they all looked very satisfied with themselves.

Yesterday, activities were running smoothly and I had nothing to do, so S, counselor P and I headed to the camp store to eat popsicles and hang out. We made plans for when the campers went home, to get all of the staff together and take the pontoon over to a nearby rope swing. That afternoon, as I teetered across a rickety balance beam, which jutted out of a hill covered in tree roots, 20 feet above the lake, I would have sworn places like that only existed in movies. Hanging onto the rope, jumping off the platform, swinging out and then dropping into the lake was one of the most terrifying/ fabulous things I've ever done. Afterwards, we celebrated our achievement by going into town and getting ice cream. A perfect end to a crazy week.

When I imagined working at an overnight camp (prior to actually working here) I thought it would be just like every camp movie I've ever seen, with funny pranks, crazy adventures and carefree summer days eating popsicles and swimming by the lake. Last year was 3 months of plunging broken toilets, cleaning up a junk filled property, answering angry phone calls and dealing with crabby staff. I still believed in the mission and loved camp, but I left the summer reminding myself that in the future, I would NOT make life decisions based on movie fantasies. This summer has been exhausting and a lot of work, and there have been a few bumps along the way, but overall, it has been an absolute dream come true. I am constantly, at least one a day, awestruck by something going on around me. I regularly catch myself thinking, "wait, is this real or am I in a movie?!" It has been an exceptional experience and I think one of the best summers I've ever had. It has flown by and I can't believe we have only one week left.