June 22, 2005

• When I was eight and went to Sesame Rockwood Day Camp, I punched a girl out.  After it happened, the interrogation went on for weeks. Why, Daryl? Are you angry?  Didja just need to let it all out?  Were there problems going on back at home? Is it because she totally stole the part you wanted in Beauty and the Beast? Is it because she took that last strand of gimp in arts and crafts?  Did it have anything to do with the fact that the red team won?  That she stole your hairbrush? How much damage did you cause? How is she doing? How are you doing? How much trouble are you in? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

  
  

   

  
  

  It would have been cool if I had some radical answer to each one of these questions.  I really didn’t, though.  The real reason I punched little Rebecca out was entirely because she asked me to. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “Why did I do it?” I had answered, pausing to create tension, “It’s quite simple, really.  Rebecca was a werewolf.  And, well…I’m a werewolf basher.”  Then I proceeded to telling everyone in graphic detail that by punching a werewolf out and then sticking three tridents through its abdomen, all the evils in the world go back to Hades.

  
  

   

  
  

  Little Carrie with the fangs never spoke to me again.

  
  

   

  
  

  Rebecca asked me to punch her in the stomach, actually.  Not to punch her out.  I was eight, though.  A stupid eight year old.  I mean, two years before that I was six.  Five years before that I was just potty trained.  Think about it.  I didn’t think about it, though.  “C’mon, Daryl,” she had coaxed, “Hit me in the tummy!  I just did thirty crunches!”  And I did.  Hard. Truculently.  Nearly knocked the wind out of her as she went flying over to the other side of the bunk and slammed against the wall.

  
  

   

  
  

  After everyone gathered around her as she cried and gasped for air, I kind of sat in the corner, muttering and moping to myself.  Everyone was giving me the evil eye.  The kind of evil eye that only eight year olds are capable of mustering.  The snotty crooked pigtailed, “I drag my stuffed teddy on the filthy ground like it’s a freaking broomstick’ type of death stare.  Even the nurse, who came in a few minutes later, quite kindly told me to go to hell.  Well, actually, she said “Daryl, Daryl, I never expected this from someone like you…”  This was only because I was the innocuous asthmatic who didn’t participate in all-camp games of capture the flag due to the risk that I might break out into a fatal coughing seizure.  However, the ‘go to hell’ was nonetheless implied.

  
  

   

  
  

  Instead, I went to Camp Fernwood.

  
  

   

  
  

  I could go on for decades as to why Camp Fernwood does, in fact, resemble my perception of hell.  But you know what?  I do that every year. I’ve always complained about it to my parents, to my friends, to the readers of this weblog.  Because Camp Fernwood doesn’t have electricity.  And in Camp Fernwood, skinny dip is practically a required sport.  And in Camp Fernwood there are uniforms, there are nine year olds that grab onto your legs like leeches, there are cockroaches and so many rigid rules and the lake is a giant man-made toilet. But this is my seventh and therefore last summer at Camp Fernwood.  And by golly do I love swimming in pee.

  
  

   

  
  

  Why the change in heart?  There wasn’t, actually.  I always had a soft spot for my camp.  In the time I spent there, so far, I hardly injured anyone I came in contact with.  Except for this one time when my friend Alex and I were canoeing and I steered the boat near a bunch of jagged rocks with eels surrounding them and we were lost for about two hours.  But they seemed like friendly eels. Not the electrocuting kind.

  
  

   

  
  

  I love camp for all the reasons I’ve constantly complained about it.  I love Fish Friday because of the alliteration.  I actually think the only reason they even serve fish at camp is entirely due to the fact that it sounds good next to ‘Friday’.  I love inspection because it came straight from The Parent Trap.  And I also love singing while I sweep.  I love it when I smell like burnt wood after camp fire.  I love it when the only toilet in the entire shower house is clogged because someone new to the whole puberty thing flushed down a few jumbo-sized tampons.  I even love watching all those freakishly huge wolf spiders dissect each other as I try to fall asleep.  Well, not really.  But I do love sleep.  Which is something I should be getting right about now since I have to wake up at six in the morning.  To, you know, go to camp.

  
  

   

  
  

  “Hehhahahee,” my mom said a few days ago when she thought I wasn’t in the room, “Little does Daryl know that I legally changed her name is Granola Prairiegirl and I’m actually sending her to Wyoming to become a farmer…”

  
  

   

  
  

  But I’m just going to pretend I’m oblivious to her plot that I completely made up out of boredom and say my goodbyes.  Don’t feel bad if I don’t write you a letter.  I’ll be much too busy having the best summer of my life.  Before I have to take part in some dry summer college program come next June.  For now, though, it’s campfires, singing, trees and Big John, the obese head chef.

  
  

   

  
  

  Have an awesome summer, everyone.  And remember, don’t do drugs, have sex without a condom, or watch the Muppet Babies without parental guidance.

  
  

   

  
  

  See you in two gorgeous months.

  • 1:39 am
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