Gabe Durham - Fun Camp

Dried burnt macaroni cheese on a pot that big means it’s time to break out the steel wool, Puddy. Keep swishing it like that in circles. Now pour that orangey water out and see how you’re doing. Long way to go. I worry over sanitation exactly as much as I worry over the Large Hedron Collider whose future self stopped it from making a Big Bang, and over a God who kicked idolatry down the list of don’ts to make room for Higgs’ particles, and over the seasonal question, “Is my love life just an experiment testing the potential correlation between hairnets and invisibility? On how low a girl’s got to wear her top to get a little attention in this getup?” All these hurts on all these timelines add up to a Twilight Zone where everybody knows the forthcoming twist and discusses it openly but will gasp with true feeling when it comes. I believe this, and when I really think about it, I cover my neck with my hands. But then the other ninety percent of the time, I revert to the adage that goes, “Has anyone known true loss but those who’ve opened an avocado to find it’s a couple days past ripe?” I wish I was rich enough to look on the back of meats for traces of chronic discomfort. I wish I’d live long enough to see how far past our own globe we can get. I wish I got to laugh at the sun with mean, real confidence for not noticing how long we’ve been growing apart, for not having enough mass to explode as a supernova. How much? How much do I worry about what ? Oh. Infrequently but desperately. What if a kid got struck down from mystery microbes in our chili-mac, Puddy? You’d kill yourself. We all would.

All school shootings would have been prevented had the shooters gone to Fun Camp.

Refusing to participate in pranks means you’re majorly asking to get pranked.

A beer sip and you’re blitzed.

Everyone deserves everything that happens.

Chef Grogg is incomprehensible and a little creepy yet may possess a heart of gold.

Grogg’s chicken potpies cause widespread diarrhea.

Girls Cabin 2 will make out with anybody.

That submarine skit can sustain 20 years of viewing.

A compilation of Tad Gunnick quotes read aloud from a ripped spiral sheet both qualifies as a skit and warrants a standing O.

Dave and Holly tolerate being mocked.

Illegal elopement from the campsite constitutes the unfun child’s most drastic method of resisting our intensive treatment structure. Often times, the flight constitutes a last-ditch attempt at hanging on to what our little renegade deems his best self. As if he’s in an objective position to appraise his own personality! Four out of five times you’ll find him hiding out in that old bunker the kids think we don’t know about. You yell at him, freak him out, tell him about the Malhara that stalks these woods, or the Jackal looking to make a ritual sacrifice, or the peeved natives looking to re-gift disease blankets to the chilled ancestors of crafty pioneers — just wing it, really, get him crying. Drive slow on the way home so he calms down, then switch to Good Cop. Here’s where the camper will complain that the leaders of Fun Camp “just don’t get my sense of humor,” or he’ll fumble around with the idea that fun is neither an absolute nor a choice. The child’s views should be applauded for their well-intendedness, then refuted. A counselor’s greatest joy is when, in a Come to Fun Camp moment such as this, the boring child expresses true contrition, and repeats with you the three tenets of surrender: I suck but I know it. I’m bland but I’m working on it. I am hated by those who will someday revere me, for as their self-awareness slackens, my power grows.

Who here can tell me how many bears came out of the woods and mauled the forty-two youths who called Elisha a baldhead? Who can tell me what God did to Uzzah when he steadied an ark he had no business steadying? Here’s a hint: The answer isn’t, “Normally, I could look it up.” Who can tell me what slithery creatures venomed the Israelites to death when they got to whining about their rustic living conditions? Anybody? This is bad news, children. I should’ve known the anti-memorization generation isn’t gonna make an exception for sanctified texts. You got the Word called up on your Ken-Doll right beside Vampire Angst Academy , ready to go, like your pocket is your brain. It’s not your fault, you poor damaged darlings, you one nation underdogs, you bushel-covered lights of mine. Your bankrupt public schools won’t even let you heed commandments in nice round numbers, rail on Darwin in a written-portion-of-the-Chem-test pinch, pray through first period in sleepy reverence, or perform any of the tricks that allowed me to clock in at school without absorbing their slop. If you haven’t heard it from anyone, you’re hearing it from me: You are what you memorize. Should we stand? Should we sing? You’d like that, but no. Instead, repeat after me: Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. Stop laughing.

Because you are children and I am a man, and thus I’ve had more opportunities to notice patterns than you have.

Because even as I stuff myself stupid at lunch, a controlling interest in me understands I’ll be starving by dinner.

Because everything that makes me irrational has been tidily wrapped up in sex.

Because a lady I knew would’ve signed on to pair up with me for the long haul if I’d asked her.

Because my biggest gripes are with soft men I’ll never meet.

Because I own my own house.

Because I’ve cajoled barroom stories from mirthy Jacks who’ll up and leave a bar at the sound of the German language.

Because I could tell you about Kansas and Kant, Ken Starr and cover letters.

Because I know tricks for keeping myself from crying.

Because I’d kick each of your asses at The Price is Right .

Because I memorized the verbal fallacies and blow this whistle whenever I hear one.

Because I’ve raised brows by wit alone.

Because I can tell you why certain movies are good with words you’d use wrong.

Because I registered your sense of wonder and factored it into the way I regard you.

Because I could trick even the savviest among you, and have already. And will.

Because the sting of failure has humbled me without my say so.

Because I annually get worse at lying to myself and better at avoiding bare truths.

Because the worry my birthday causes me points to a big fact I’m beginning to allow myself to acknowledge.

Because I’d do alright in the wild for a time.

Because I could kill each of you with both arms bound.

Because I know just when to kill a joke.

If you think back far enough, what wasn’t built on an Indian burial ground? Was I the ghost of a native, I bet I’d be pretty understanding about where my conquerors build their resorts. The sacred’s got a clock like anything. Me, I’d like my grave marked and mowed for a solid century, long enough for everyone who could’ve ever loved me to join me. After that, they’re free to erect a fresh Dillard’s on my once-marked bones. I owe a shot at discounts to the not yet dead.