It Takes A Lot to Surprise Me

This is my 17^th summer of camp. I thought I was past being surprised, but I was wrong.

Today is the first staff arrival day. Everyone was supposed to be here between 1-5pm. Last night, I got a voicemail from a staff (‘E’). He asked if he could arrive early- he wanted to come last night. He said in his message that he didn’t have a cell phone. We attempted to call the landline on his application and assumed he wouldn’t come without confirming that it would be ok.

A&M said they went to bed (and turned off the house lights) around 11pm. He hadn’t arrived, so they figured he wasn’t coming.

I went out to the field to play with Olivia at 10am. I was singing to X and when we were finished playing, I turned to walk back towards my house and saw someone standing in front of the Welcome Center. I recognized ‘E’ from the picture he sent for the website.

I greeted him and asked where he had come from since I hadn’t seen a car. He said he had arrived the night before. My face was surprised and he said, “I hope you don’t mind, I put my stuff in there (the welcome center)”. I asked him where he slept (the cabins are so creepy when you are alone and especially if he arrived so late at night!). On that table (he pointed to the big picnic table that sits outside the welcome center). “WHAT?” I asked him. He assured me that he’d arrived after it had rained and that it was fine.

I couldn’t decide if I was going to cry because he was so pathetic that he slept on a damp hard table outside in the dark. Being a mom makes me imagine everyone as a tiny helpless baby.  OR, if I was annoyed at him for being dumb. Why didn’t he walk around and find a cabin? Why didn’t he sleep inside the welcome center? Why didn’t he find the humans that were at camp? Why didn’t he find a phone? And then I felt sad again because I wondered what kind of parents drop their baby (ok, yes, he’s 19, not a baby, but he’s SOMEONE’S baby!) in the dark without finding anyone?

He was very calm and easygoing and totally unfazed by the whole thing. I was HORRIFIED and continue to be COMPLETELY confused by his thought process. A&M and I agreed he’ll probably be a good camp staff since he has absolutely zero standards of comfort. But I can’t stop shaking my head in disbelief.