One Wet Shoe

It is Christmas week and so last night, all of the kids and staff left one show on their cabin porches because St. Nick was rumored to be making a visit.

At 3am, the crashing thunder woke me up and as I sat up in bed, I said out loud, "they're all going to have one wet shoe!"

The power went out but the lightning was bright. The winds were shaking my camper. I was frantically checking all of the weather apps I have on my phone. There weren't any alerts and when I looked out my front door, it looked like a normal rain storm, nothing major.

I was wide awake in bed. As I lay in bed worrying, I realized that I wasn't worried about a tornado or severe weather. That is always a concern, but my real fear was that a huge tree would fall on one of my flimsy little cabins and crush a bunch of campers. There is not an app to predict that or a warning system to alert me to get them to safety.

Eventually I fell back to sleep and when I went to breakfast this morning, many kids told me they had slept through the storm and hadn't heard anything. Everyone had one wet shoe, but no one seemed concerned about it.

I am enjoying myself immensely this summer but my sleepless night was a reminder of how much responsibility this job is. Even if everyone else at camp sleeps through the storm, I will not be able to relax until the last camper and staff have made it safely home at the end of the summer. I guess I can sleep then...