Camp Pining Hearts and Summerteen Romance got me thinking. Summer camp isn't a thing I ever did and I hated the mandatory uni trip (it was cold and I had to dissect things) so I want to live vicariously.
Oh man so I went to this fantastic wildlife camp every summer for like five years and I have some very important summer camp things to suggest. I was there when Half-Blood Prince came out and EVERYBODY wanted ahold of the, like, two copies that people got out to where we were in the woods. Weird camp traditions. Mine had a bunch- singing random pop songs at dinner, uneaten food for the compost heap (called "Ort" for uncertain reasons) being weighed after each meal, the Ant Game, the perpetual dorm cleaning rivalry, reporting weird things on the bird census ("BEAR" was on the list one year), a "final exam" on the last day involving camp counselors in silly outfits and a story... Stuff around the camp with really weird histories. Like the mucky pond everyone avoided because it's what the old sewage system emptied into like 20 years ago, nicknamed the Loogoon. Kids who blossom in very strange ways. There was one guy the staff liked to talk about who was famous as The Turtle Catcher- he would dive into the pond, come out with a snapping turtle, dive back in, come back out with ANOTHER snapping turtle... One year we had a kid who would just... eat bugs. He'd just catch a grasshopper and eat it. Had a lot of fun with the lemonade ants. A bat gets into a dorm, campers go apeshit. The weird in-jokes that develop when a bunch of people are in a confined space for a long time. One year nobody could drop jokes about pirates vs. ninjas and how the camp was founded by pirates. The poor annoyed camp counselors who are assigned to hang around in the back on hikes to keep an eye on out-of-shape asthmatic campers who can barely take three steps without stopping to wheeze. (Hint: that was me. I held up SO MANY counselors who just wanted to go up the hill.) The crazy cardinal that lives in the parking lot and tries to attack visitors' cars' side mirrors. Going camping, falling asleep in a field with just your face out of the sleeping bag, and waking up with your face totally covered in mosquito bites. People having emotional meltdowns because ticks are gross. Somebody inevitably managing to do something really stupid involving poison ivy.
One year they just randomly had a whole bunch of campers who were super-excited about learning about moths. That year's final exam story was "Mothra vs. The Ort Monster."
I ALWAYS LOVED THAT KID THEY WERE SO AWESOME. i didnt get to do too many camps but the ones i did get to go to (and the summer i worked at one which was both awesome and complete hell at the same time) i was always the super shy kid who became a wild child when at camp. you know the one, the kid who wanted to hike forever (despite also being in the "keeps that one annoyed counseler in the back by being wiped out already" club) and stay in the pool extra long splashing everyone and always screamed on the zipline but got in line as many times as possible and kept everyone awake at night thinking up ghost stories.
Oh, did anyone else's camp have those stupid showers which never run hot and the spray feels like being hit with tiny needles?
At mine it never ran hot and since they had limited water resources they told you to keep all showers under two minutes. Tiny me and my 20-minute-shower habit suffered.
i have always hated showers and have tried to take as short a time as possible and still do everything needed from a young age and even i think this is a ridiculous expectation. all you'd have time for is to get wet and get out, that's stupid.
I went to music camp (not band camp) a couple of times, and the weirdest thing we did was The Dead Beaver Game, where everyone would lie on the grass perfectly still and the last person lying there (while the counsellors tried to trick you into moving, tried to startle you, etc) won. Wait, no, the weirdest thing was probably that me and my friend wore cat ears all the time and accidentally founded an exclusive club, which accidentally got into a war with another group. That was a trip.
I had the disadvantage that my last one was a trip with university. I was able to wrangle sleeping in the two-bed room with nobody else in it, with the six other girls in the other room, but try sleeping with six people partying in the next room when you have to be up at a ridiculous hour the next day and REALLY need your sleep :(
I also call dibs on the person who sneaks Cards Against Humanity in. Most of my camp experiences are those that are on college campuses, so I don't have too many good stories. One camp had for whatever reason had a weird obsession with American Pie. I did not like that camp very much.
