{"id":549,"date":"2011-10-13T17:59:51","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T21:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/?p=549"},"modified":"2012-06-05T19:39:11","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T23:39:11","slug":"why-i-am-not-going-to-summer-camp-this-year-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=549","title":{"rendered":"Why I Am Not Going To Summer Camp This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s be clear on this.\u00a0 They can\u2019t<\/em> make me! If I have to I will remain in this bathroom forever.\u00a0 I will turn off all the lights.\u00a0 I will grab the plush bath towels taken from the Connaught Hotel in London and wedge them under the door.\u00a0 Then I will turn on the bath water and let it over flow to fill the room\u2026 and<\/em> then I will drown in the dark.<\/p>\n

That will teach them! (maybe before drowning I will slash my wrists with my Father\u2019s razor so there will be blood\u2026 there has<\/em> to be blood)<\/p>\n

I know what you\u2019re thinking.\u00a0 I\u2019m being overly dramatic.\u00a0 I\u2019m making an unnecessary fuss.\u00a0 After all\u2026 who doesn\u2019t love going away for the summer, and leave behind the anxieties of home, family and suburbia?<\/p>\n

Wait a second!\u00a0 I\u2019m putting the light back on.\u00a0 Oh, look at this!\u00a0 I think I have a zit on my chin!\u00a0 Shit!\u00a0 I’m too young to have this! And they want me to go camp?\u00a0 With a zit?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Would, My Father, Mr. Fancy Shmancy Partner of the hedge fund go to work with a fuckin\u2019 zit on his chin?\u00a0 NO!\u00a0 He would rather walk across broken glass!\u00a0 But does he care about me?<\/p>\n

Maybe I won\u2019t have to slash my wrists and drown in the dark.\u00a0 Maybe I will starve to death.\u00a0 A slow, long drawn out heart wrenching end that will be covered by all the papers!\u00a0 Hedge Fund King Suffers A Loss<\/em>!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it!\u00a0 I will refuse all food!\u00a0 Just like I should have done at Camp Wilderness!\u00a0 Camp Wilderness?\u00a0 No electricity.\u00a0 No plumbing.\u00a0 Rustic charm.\u00a0 Builds character… so the brochures claimed.<\/p>\n

I am turning off the lights again. <\/p>\n

My highlights from camp last year\u2026<\/p>\n

I threw up after lunch on the first day.\u00a0 The grey lunch meat turned out to be very old cheese (Mark Sklarz, our tent counselor, said it was caribou).\u00a0 I spent the rest of the summer surviving on soggy potato chips and chocolate milk.<\/p>\n

I cut my foot on the boat dock on day two.\u00a0 I needed 15 stitches to close the wound.<\/p>\n

Did I mention no plumbing?\u00a0 The Camp outhouse, a four seat version, was probably considered a palace<\/em> during the Civil War, when it was erected. On warm nights with a westerly breeze, you could smell that outhouse a quarter mile away.\u00a0 Our group tent was just 75yds away.<\/p>\n

Camp Wilderness bordered a large pond considered of strategic importance.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 I have no clue. But the adjacent wood became a home to a nike missile site in the early 1960s.\u00a0 Not a cause for major concern \u2018til a July night last year when Lance Pendleton (from Massapequa) thought that it would be fun to build a fire for roasting marshmallows next to the ammo dump.\u00a0 Lance\u2019s parents had to come and explain his actions to the Camp Director, Reuben Feingold and<\/em> the F.B.I.<\/p>\n

On the third day, when I was at the fishing cove, a seagull swiped my snacktime graham cracker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a rainy afternoon spent in the Arts & Crafts Cabin,\u00a0\u00a0I drove a finishing nail into my thumb(maybe it was a blessing to learn at an early age that \u201chandiness\u201d will never be one of my strengths).<\/p>\n

Mr. Feingold told us that if we failed to \u201cbuddy-up\u201d during pond swim, we would suffer a horrific diarrhea attack that would last a week.\u00a0 On my fourth day at camp, during the afternoon swim, my \u201cbuddy\u201d, Clay Gillette, was out of sight on the far side of the diving raft when the buddy-up<\/em> whistle blew.\u00a0I was by myself. \u00a0Red Verderame, the Swim Front Counselor, sent me from the water.\u00a0 I had horrific diarrhea for a week.\u00a0 I spent the rest of the summer hiding from Mr. Feingold.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m not keen on reptiles, I am a fan of dinosaurs.\u00a0 Not that there was going to be a chance of stumbling on a stegosaurus at Camp Wilderness.\u00a0 But that didn\u2019t stop Joey Horton (who wasn\u2019t keen on reptiles or<\/em> dinosaurs) from staking out Hostess Twinkies on the perimeter of our tent.\u00a0 This was his idea of how to keep carnivorous reptiles (and sweet-eating dinosaurs?) at bay.\u00a0 Joey?\u00a0 He had problems.<\/p>\n

The Camp softball diamond had a rut<\/em>\u00a0four steps\u00a0from second base.\u00a0 During the Battle of the Bulge they would have called the rut a fox hole.\u00a0 In addition to spraining my ankle in that rut while\u00a0trying to stretch a single into a double, as I lay on the ground in agony, I suffered the added indignity of having a seagull (probably the same one who stole my graham cracker) score a direct hit on my baseball cap and left shoulder\u00a0with his diarrhea load.\u00a0 It was\u00a0painfully obvious that\u00a0diarrhea would be a common affliction\u00a0for campers\u00a0and birds alike.\u00a0Let\u2019s not forget the Saturday my Father had to give up playing at Pinehurst so that he could answer for my behavior to Mr. Feingold.\u00a0 Was it my fault that Randy Chapnick was standing 50yds behind the archery target? \u00a0\u00a0Yes, I overshot the target. \u00a0But I was demonstrating to Clay Gillette what the English Archers of King Henry V did to the French men at arms\u00a0at the Battle of Agincourt.\u00a0 And besides, my arrow barely penetrated Randy\u2019s butt. <\/p>\n

I am putting the light back on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0My Father has a bottle of iodine in the medicine cabinet somewhere in\u00a0here.\u00a0 ? \u2026 smells like the single malt scotch he likes to drink.\u00a0 Hmmmm.\u00a0 Maybe if I swallow enough of it I will poison myself.\u00a0 And even if I don\u2019t die, I will probably throw up!\u00a0 That\u2019s it\u2026 I\u2019ll puke on his prized after-bath robe that he took from the H\u00f4tel George-V in Paris! The stains will never come out!!<\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u2026 I\u2019m not coming out!\u00a0 I\u2019m never coming out!\u00a0 You can\u2019t make me go!\u00a0 What\u2019s that you say?\u00a0 Lobster and sweet corn?\u00a0 It’s almost ready?\u00a0 Did Mom pick up some White Birch Beer?\u00a0 Great\u2026 OK, I\u2019m coming out.\u00a0 Dad, I think I have a zit… oh, one more thing\u2026 I\u2019m sorry Dad, but I accidently spilled some iodine on your bathrobe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s be clear on this.\u00a0 They can\u2019t make me! If I have to I will remain in this bathroom forever.\u00a0 I will turn off all the lights.\u00a0 I will grab the plush bath towels taken from the Connaught Hotel in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-brief-tales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":795,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions\/795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}