1.) Wake up at 6 AM. March with inmates single file to concrete cube in the woods. The counselors call it a bathroom but you doubt it. It smells funny and has no air conditioning.
2.) Brush teeth. Take shower. Water either ice cold or scalding hot. Try not to stare too much at stuff growing out of the drains.
3.) Counselors escort you and fellow convicts to cafeteria, or to use prison lingo the ‘mess hall’. Shiver because you didn’t have enough time to completely dry off after the shower.
4.) Counselor named Jimmy or Brenda or something announces they forced you out of the shower for nothing breakfast still cooking. Leads inmates in song involving Tarzan getting a tan to pass the time.
5.) Sit in plastic chair. It feels slightly moist but you don’t question it.
6.) Camp counselors lead you and fellow inmates in singing the Lord’s Prayer to the tune of the Adam’s Family theme song. Wonder why these guys feel constant need to hype you up for every stupid thing.
7.) Breakfast is pack of mini cereals placed on the table alongside cartons of reduced fat milk. 1%, because apparently you aren’t underweight enough.
8.) Get left with the plain cheerios after everyone calls dibs on the Lucky Loops, the Sugar Bombs, the Crispy Golds, etc.
9.) Counselor marches you and inmates to room in main cabin where tables are set up. Told you will be engaging in ‘arts and crafts’.
10.) Papier-maché a balloon for the next hour. Wonder what exactly you are accomplishing with this.
11.) Hike in woods single file with inmates. Do not see a single bird, deer, or any other animal. But you do see trees with grey bark that wrinkles and folds like human skin. It is way less cool than it sounds.
12.) Return to mess hall for lunch. This time, the waiting song is about baby sharks and mommy sharks, while the Lord’s Prayer is sung to the tune of the Spider Man theme song.
13.) Ask guy sitting next to you what extraterrestrial being the Salisbury suprise is made of. Get called a retard but choose not to snitch.
14.) Forcefully escorted to the lake for mandatory canoeing. Time stops as counselors put life vest on you and explain boat safety.
15.) Scream for help as boating partner rocks the canoe on purpose.
16.) Kiss the ground when you miraculously make it back to shore. Apparently this makes you a ‘total pussy’.
17.) Cast out into exercise yard (referred to as ‘playground’) behind main cabin. It is a cracked blacktop with a single basketball hoop and a tetherball.
18.) Fight tether-ball to prove you’re the toughest kid in the yard.
19.) Tether-ball beats the ever-loving crap out of you.
20.) The waiting song is about bullfrogs and the Lord’s Prayer is done to the tune of ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis.
21.) Over a plate of limp spaghetti and salsa, ask guy next to you what the heck ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis is. Your guess is as good as his.
22.) March over to main cabin and sit in circle around star rug with other inmates. Ms. Hobag awards the ‘best behaved’ kids stickers, which they wear like they just got their first merit badge.
23.) For the next hour watch camp counselors perform a skit that should have only been fifteen minutes.
24.) Shuffle to bathroom. Brush teeth while ignoring the twenty moths banging their heads against the celling lights.
25.) Return to cabin. Try to sleep while Jeremy Roddleman recites entire episodes of Family Guy line by line.
26.) Instinctively clutch imaginary dino-pony close to your chest.
27.) Do everything except fall asleep.
28.) Repeat steps 1-27.
For the next four days, this was my reality. I’m still not sure how I made it that long without going nuts. Maybe God just gave me an iron will to make up for my noodle arms.
Hilda, meanwhile, was going on adventures with fantasy geese or whatever. Though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Ever since we’d turned ten, she’d been doing her own thing a lot. And I couldn’t even blame her, given what I was going through.
But on that fourth night, Hobag dropped an absolute bomb on us over dinner:
“Awesome news, everybody! They finished cleaning out the pool, so tomorrow, we’re doing SWIMMING LESSONS!” Then she spread her arms wide, like this was something we should be excited for.
I leapt from my chair and landed at her feet. Sobbing, I tried to explain how I was fatally allergic to water, but my pleas for mercy were met only with snickers from my fellow inmates. That and the camp counselors tying me to my seat for the rest of the evening.
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I spent that night curled up in my sleeping bag, praying to every God I could think of, though these prayers were probably lost amongst Howie Ronson’s late night comedy hour. In that moment I hated Howie and how everyone thought he was the coolest guy in the universe just because he knew the f-word. I mean, I’d known about fudgenugget for ages, but you didn’t see me getting an award!
As I cooked alive in my sleeping bag, a familiar voice came from under the bunk bed.
“I’m really sorry.” Hilda whispered, “But the geese and I are busy organizing a raid and-“
“It’s okay, Hilda.” I sighed. “You can say you just goofed off in the woods.”
“Watt, I swear I’m not making things up!” She protested. “The Larp geese needed my help to-!”
”I need your help!” I hissed, “But lately, all you seem to do is wander off to do your own thing!”
“You say that like I want these stupid adventures!” she cried “Maybe I want to go to school and make friends instead of playing errand boy for a bunch of talking birds!”
“You want to do swimming lessons?!”
And for a moment, there was nothing but the rustling of the tree branches outside. The cabin, against all odds, got just a little bit cooler.
“Alright Watt. Just tell me what I need to do and when I need to do it.” Her voice was dead serious.
Deep in my sleeping bag, armed with only a flashlight and my old Jurassic Park sketchbook, Hilda and I plotted long into the night.
Unfortunately, that meant I woke up real groggy the next day, which is the last thing you want to be when busting out of prison. Combine that with a pool somebody had definitely peed in, pavement cooking my feet, and having to constantly glare at Jeremy Roddleman’s ripped abs, and I was not a happy camper.
Our orders were simple: form a line along the rim of the pool while an instructor, waist deep in the water, would take us in one at a time and dunk our heads. Little did they suspect I was going to take a cue from the Old Testament and make my own personal Exodus!
The question, of course, was when. Because four counselors were monitoring the pool and if I wanted a snowman in Hell’s chance, I’d need an opening, the sort that wasn’t just going to-
“Mr. Fleming, you know me to be a fair and honest young man. I have partaken in the game of naming, the mess hall choir, the excursion at the lake, even that concoction which our dear camp cook has referred to as Salisbury Surprise-“
It was that chunky kid I’d sat next to on the bus! Dressed in a red and white striped body suit and staring at our instructor’s open arms like they were the jaws of death itself.
“Out with it, Shatner.” Sighed our swim instructor, rolling his eyes. “There’s, like, thirty kids behind you and we don’t have all day.”
“What I mean to say, my good sir, is that every boy, no matter how indomitable, has his limits. This is mine.” The chunky kid (or Shatner, I should say) stomped the ground for emphasis.
Fleming gestured at one of the counselors, who walked over and put his hands on Shatner’s elbows.
“Kid, I really didn’t want to do this, but-“
“BULLY!”
My jaw dropped as the chunky kid grabbed the counselor by the arm and- I kid you not- FLUNG THE GUY RIGHT OVER HIS HEAD AND INTO THE POOL!
Everyone in line took a step back as it somehow got EVEN CRAZIER, because another two counselors ran up to the kid. He just smirked, held his fists over his face, and laughed
“PUT UP YOUR DUKES, WANKERS! FOR I AM SHATNER ATTICUS THERMOPYLAE CASSIUS GANAPATI WILDES! COME AT ME, AND MEET YOUR DOOM!”
If taking down a counselor twice his size didn’t get everyone’s attention, his boast certainly did!
And that’s when I realized: he’d gotten everyone’s attention!
I speed walked across the rim of the pool, pavement cooking my feet. With any luck Hilda and her goose friends would be waiting at the chain link fence just beyond the twelve foot area. But I made it only halfway before a head emerged from the depths, looking right at me!
“Hey kid!” The dunked counselor cried, spitting out water. ”Line’s that way!”
And when I didn’t stop, he turned to the inmates in line and went
“First guy to catch that kid gets an entire ream of scratch n’ sniffs!”
Ten kids, each twice my height, barreled right toward me. But just when all hope seemed lost, I spied a life saver hanging on the side of the supply shed. Faster than I could think I picked that bad boy up by the rope and started swinging it around like a medieval flail. Before anyone knew what was happening, four kids had been knocked into the water.
“Get away from me, you jerks!” I screamed.
“Watterson, what-“
BAM! Before the counselor could finish his sentence, I got him square on the jaw, sending him right back to the chlorinated depths! The remaining six campers stepped back, trying to find an opening. As for yours truly, I kept swinging, slowly backing toward the chain link fence. But I wasn’t out of the woods just yet. I kicked it seven times-
ClingClangClingClangClingClangCling!
:the signal for Hilda’s goose friends to swoop in and fly me to safety. I stuck my tongue out at the other campers. Victory was in the air, and it tasted like pool water!
Or it was, until I saw a little black dot buzzing my way.
Now, what happened in the next minute might seem irrational or dumb, and looking back it kind of was, but in my defense, there was a good reason for it.
See, one day back in 1st grade, I was nodding off on the bus ride home when I felt the sharpest sting in my belly. First I shrugged it off as just me sitting weird, but it came again. And again. I wailed, helpless my invisible tormentor. It was only after a teacher told me to lift up my shirt I found the black and yellow culprit waiting.
All of which is to say I held on best I could for the next two minutes, but after that, the little bug had gotten too close for comfort.
“BEEEEEEEE!”
I screamed before plunging into the water.
The twelve foot end.
When I couldn’t swim for my life.
And the chlorine was setting my eyes on fire.
But I’d escaped death by stinger, so at least I could die happy.
The last thing I heard before I lost consciousness was Shatner going
“Well I’ll be, a nine spotted ladybug! I didn’t think we had those around- AAAAHHHH!” followed by the mother of all splashes as something landed like a meteor in the pool.
I woke to the hum of the camp’s only air conditioner. Now, I’m not usually one for cryin’, but in that moment I wept buckets. It’d been so long since I’d felt the sweet kiss of artificial cooling I’d almost forgot it even existed. But the moment was short lived, because when I tried to get up, I realized I was tied fast to a chair with lanyards. The rest of the room looked kinda like the principal’s office at my school: filing cabinets in a corner, big desk topped with a computer dated even in ’06 and football player bobble heads- the whole shebang. Then I read the name plaque on the desk. I may have gotten a C- in english, but even I knew how to spell Ms. Helga Hobag in big gold letters. And just my luck, I could hear footsteps echoing down a hall outside. The ceiling fan circled above like a flock of vultures awaiting fresh meat.
Then SHE walked in, and the breath left my lungs for the second time that day.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Watterson J. Tostig.” Ms. Hobag said.
