Growing up I ALWAYS wanted to go to camp.  I mean, I desperately wanted to be in a log cabin.  I wanted to get poison ivy in places I should not.  I wanted to play practical jokes on bunk mates and then get stuck with some stupid punishment.  I’m not sure why it started, probably the glory of Hollywood and Nickelodeon, but it didn’t matter, I just wanted in.

Every spring I would beg my mother to send me to camp.  She never did, not even a single week.  The problem is that every year when I would ask she would totally play it off like she was going to send me.  One year she actually got the phone book out and started calling people.  Good scam mom! I’m sure she hoped, being the ADHD monster that I was, i would just forget about it.  Well I didn’t.  I was scared for life.  I still watch “Bug Juice” re-runs on the Disney Channel to try to vicariously live the pre-adolescent experience of love and freedom.

I know it was never an intentional thing, It wasn’t as though my mom was trying to torture me at least not in this case.  It was always a money issue.  Camp is fricken expensive and it makes sense.  If you wanted me to take your kid(s) and entertain them for extended periods of time I would charge you a shit ton.  Growing up we just didn’t have a ton of money so I had to settle for the next best thing, Camp “Go Outside”.  The thing was, just because my parents couldn’t afford to send me to camp didn’t mean they wanted to entertain me all day, so they did what any good parent would do; they sent me outside to entertain myself.

Camp “Go Outside” wasn’t all bad, there were the occasional ups.  So I’ve re-built a typical day’s itinerary to show you all the fun I had.

9am – 10am: Collect Rocks – Campers will collect rocks and put them in a wagon on the off chance that some of these minerals have some unknown value.

10am – 11am: Dig Holes - At this point campers can attempt to dig holes to China.  We do caution campers to be weary of accidentally digging into the Devil’s lair on their way to China.

11am – 11:30am: Light Fires – This is the point of the day where campers find products from the tool shed and find out whether they are flammable or not.  Campers typically do this in a wooded area because that’s where things can catch fire.

11:30am – 12:15pm: Beg To Go Inside - This is the point of the day when campers get bored and beg to go inside and play video games.

12:15pm – 1pm: Lunch – Mom allows children back inside to eat, but quickly grows annoyed and sends them back outside.

1pm – 2pm: Fort Building - This activity can be done in or out of a tree.  When done in a tree, it typically only consists of an individual board in a tree creating a sort of perch.  Campers use adult tools so it’s fairly advanced.

2pm – 2:05pm : Fall Out Of Tree Fort – Self explanatory.

2:05pm – 2:30pm: Recover From Fall

2:30pm – 4pm: Weapon Building – Every fort needs makeshift weapons and booby traps to protect it, even if you are currently afraid to go back up in that fort right now, you still need to protect it.

4pm – 4:30pm: Hide From Older Campers – by this point of the day the other campers have grown bored and usually resort to violence as a result.  This can be a fun activity if successful.

4:30pm: Mom Allows Return Home

You can clearly tell how awesome this camp was.  Who needs sports, field trips or adult supervision when you can have none of them instead?  I learned a lot in my time at that camp.  For example I learned that… well I didn’t really learn that much, but I was occupied, and that counts for something.  I mean I’ve heard some pretty awesome stories about other camps, especially Jewish ones, but who wants to be kissing girls when you could be lighting fires in the woods?

OK, I’ll admit it, I still desperately want to go to Summer Camp!  If there are any adult ones in existence, I’m so in!

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