Working at camp for the last 8 years, I have acquired a lot of great stories. Some stories are from before I was Camp Director and some are more recent. I've chosen my top three stories to share with you. I hope you're able to get a good laugh in today.
1. The Chicken
This story doesn't exactly have to do with camp, but it happened while I was there, so I felt it was worth sharing.
It was my third summer working at camp and my job was the activity coordinator. This meant that I had to plan and implement all of the activities happening at camp. Naturally, a part of the position was going into town to make supply runs.
On my way to Walmart (the only store in town that carries what I need), I go past a few rural properties. One of the properties has about twenty chickens that they let roam loose through their yard. Typically the chickens stay relatively close to the yard and rarely jut out into the middle of the road. This day was a different story. As I was passing the house, one of the chickens ran out in the center of the road. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop fast enough and with a large THUD, I hit the chicken straight on.
I am a sucker for animals and immediately felt terrible. I had just hit someone's pet chicken (probably wasn't actually a pet, but at the moment that is what I thought). So, naturally, I did what any good samaritan would do and I went to the door to let the family know that I hit their chicken. After a few knocks at the door and arousing the dog (right next to the vicious dog sign), I determined that there was no one home. Instead of simply leaving and moving on in life, I thought it was prudent to write a note. Working at camp, it might seem logical that I would always carry paper on hand. Today, I had no paper in my car. After searching my car for upwards of 5 minutes, I used the only items I had - a used Taco Bell wrapper and a brown Crayola marker.
As the question swirled through my head of what to leave on the note, I finally settled on a simple message. "I'm sorry I killed your chicken. Call me at xxx-xx-xxx." Why I decided to leave my phone number, I will never know. It wasn't like I was expecting someone to give me a call back about their dead chicken and the note left on a Taco Bell wrapper.
Of course, I couldn't just leave the poor chicken in the middle of the road. I decided to carefully move the chicken from the road to the steps of the house. Thankfully, I had my first aid kit along (a camp essential) and pulled out a pair of quality latex gloves before touching the body. After the body was properly positioned, I sped off as fast I could to Walmart since I was likely going to be late for the upcoming activity.
When I arrived back at camp, of course, my co-workers questioned my whereabouts. I was typically a very speedy shopper, so they wanted to know what the hold-up was. I started explaining the story of the chicken I started crying (that was embarrassing). While my eyes filled with tears, my co-workers started laughing hysterically. And that is when I realized that my camp friends would soon be my best friends.
2. The Tampon
Before this story begins, let me make it clear that I do not recommend any of the actions that take place in the story. Looking back, I made a rather poor decision, but it makes for a funny story now.
My first summer as a counselor, I had the wonderful opportunity to work in a troop camp setting. Troop camp involves working with girls and their Troop leaders.
On Tuesday morning, our group of girls and troop leaders was scheduled to go to the lake. The lake is about a ten-minute hike from camp, so the girls and troop leaders were busy getting ready for the short hike. After about 15 minutes, I realized that we were going to be late for our scheduled activity. This wasn't a huge deal, however, I decided that I should check on the troop to make sure that everything was okay. They had been in the bathroom for well over 20 minutes.
As I approached the door to the bathroom, I heard what sounded like some sort of dying animal. Crazy thoughts raced through my mind. Are they killing a small animal? Is someone hurt? I politely knocked on the door and waited for someone to open it. The bathroom does have stalls, so I wasn't expecting to interrupt anyone's privacy.
When one of the troop leader's opened the door, I saw something that I certainly did not expect. A young girl was laying on the floor bawling her eyes out as a troop leader (pretty sure it wasn't her legal guardian) was trying to insert a tampon up her vagina. At first, I wasn't sure how to respond to the situation. My natural instincts from years of working in customer service prompted me to ask the following, "Is there anything I can do to help?" I wasn't sure what I was expecting for an answer to this question.
After a brief moment of awkward silence, the troop leader said, "maybe this would work better if you helped her." I explained to the troop leader that we have many girls who choose not to wear tampons while swimming in the lake and that she really would not need a tampon in to go swimming. The troop leader insisted that mom (who was on the phone) at the time would like the girl to have a tampon in for swimming. Without thinking of the potential consequences, I agreed to help the girl insert her tampon.
I have had a lot of experience with blood, vomit, other bodily fluids, etc. At 20 years old, this was my first experience helping someone insert a tampon. At first, I wasn't sure what to do. The girl was screaming "please NO, please No" over and over again. I decided that the only way to get the job done was to just do it. I told the girl that the train was coming into the port and shoved the tampon in her vagina. The girl stopped screaming and said, "It's in?"
Once I confirmed that the tampon was in, the girl gave me a very awkward hug. I wasn't sure what to say, so I simply left the bathroom and told the troop leaders I would meet them by the picnic table in five minutes. Oddly enough, my first-year camp counselor self saw little issue with what I had done and continued the day as normal.
3. The Squirrels and Racoon
My first summer as a camp director it took me some time to get acquainted to the animal sounds in my rustic cabin. The most alarming sound came from inside the wall of my shower. It was my second day on the job when I heard what sounded like a human being clawing the walls of my shower at 1:30 am. I jumped up from bed (pepper spray in hand) ready to take down whoever dared to enter my cabin. Heart pounding, I reached for the shower curtain expecting a person to jump out. When I pulled on the curtain, the sound stopped and there was nothing there. Just an empty shower. At this point, I was slightly confused and in a tired trance. I decided to let it go and head back to bed.
Fast forward a week and I heard the sound again. This time, my husband (who previously called me crazy when I told him about the situation) was with me. I made my husband go check it out hoping that he would find something. As soon as my husband entered the bathroom, the sound stopped. Once again, there was just an empty shower. The noise like this went on and off for quite some time. Around midsummer, I started noticing a mysterious brown sludge dripping down from the shower handle. Now I knew it was time to get the property manager involved.
I explained the situation to my property manager (who I am pretty sure also thought I was crazy about hearing the noises) and he said that he would take a look. Upon a close inspection of shower, he found that squirrels had made a nest inside my shower wall. Naturally, I expected that he would remove the squirrels from the wall of my shower. Instead, he sealed the hole where the squirrels got in and left the squirrels inside the wall. Within a week or so, my cabin started to reek of a dead body. Febreeze and I became good friends during that time.
A couple of weeks later (near the end of camp), I hear a similar scratching sound in the early morning, however, this time, it sounded like it was coming from the back wall of my cabin outside. My first thought was that it must be a squirrel trying to make its way back into my shower wall. Instead of leaving the creature be, I decided that it was my responsibility to stop the animal from getting back in. With no shoes, my patterned nightgown, and an alarm clock (why I had this, I'm still not sure) in hand, I bolted out of bed and ran to the back of my cabin. When I reached the back of my cabin, I did not find a squirrel. Instead, I found a raccoon.... with five babies. The momma racoon looked ticked, so instead of walking away, I threw my alarm clock at it. This did not end well.
One hour later I explained to my staff that I was heading out to the local hospital to get a rabies shot. This was my first time ever getting a rabies shot (hopefully my last time) and I was expecting to be similar to getting a vaccine. It was not. A rabies shot involves a catheter-like needle that is half an arms-length long repeatedly being stabbed into your deltoid muscle. I was also under the impression that this shot would be a one and done, but it turns out that you have to go back for a second round. Needless to say, if I get bit again I will just be taking my chances.
