Gabe Durham - Fun Camp

Most popular among the means with which unfun campers will attempt to disrupt norming is a complex of behavior we call Fun Camper Caricaturing, in which the child exaggerates overtly the conduct traditionally associated with joviality. The camper may, for instance, try to emulate the wacky behavior of various film and television personalities, which would normally be advisable. However, the child in question has often been cursed with aged or otherwise out of touch parents who don’t provide or permit windows into contemporary culture, and thus, the child’s attempts at levity rarely amount to more than googly-eyed Rodney Dangerfield jokes, or, in extreme cases, Three Stooges routines in which the child plays all three stooges. In his efforts to appear hilarious, the boring child says, “You see how typically fun I am. My behavior is appropriate for my age, and I am not without humor. Hence, you need not correct me.” In such cases, the unlearning of the parents’ harmful comedic influence is often much more time-and-attention-consuming for concerned counselors than is filling the campers’ brains with the prevalent edgy and ethnic comic routines of the day.

What if there was just one hour of free time in the exact middle of the week when you gave us our phones back? We pop on, read our texts, take some pictures, watch a couple videos, check the weather, and see what’s up with the rest of the world. I can’t tell you how many times, today alone, I’ve felt the sweet new text buzz on my thigh and reached for my pocket, only to remember where I am, and that my every camp conversation is one of those out-loud person-to-person type deals, unrecorded and liable to be forgotten forever. That when a joke is made, there’s an expectation that I literally laugh my ass off — hard to fake, and harder still to watch as others pull off convincingly. The world’s marching on without us, Holly. Human Interest article-writers have proven Fear of Missing Out to be a real diagnosable pandemic: a big collective struggle in the long run but easily satisfied in the short.

Hey Scotty. Just wanted to send you a warm fuzzy to say hey and I’ve enjoyed getting to know you the last couple days and I think you’re a pretty cool guy and I thought you would like to get a warm fuzzy in case you haven’t been getting many. It seems like you might not be getting many. And that’s sad. So don’t get the wrong idea — I’m not being flirtatious. Sometimes guys who don’t get a lot of warm fuzzies read too much into the warm fuzzies they do get, hearing what they want to hear instead of what’s there, taking a girl’s general sweetness for more than it is, and these boys end up telling the girls things they can’t take back and ruining nice friendships. Truth is, half your cabinmates are about to get warm fuzzies from me, including the three guys I’m actually interested in. Speaking of: Could you reply with a list of the guys in your cabin who already have dates to the Midnight Hike? You help me, I help you. Any girl you got your eye on, you let me know and we’ll see if we can matchmake some magic. Your way-too-baggy t-shirts say funny things on them, Scotty, and certain girls respond to that. xoxo, Becca

Weird thing happened yesterday after the Family Matters skit. What? What do you mean, “What Family Matters skit?” The skit my cabin did. You missed it? Where were — no, never mind, never mind, don’t even speak her name. So the Cliff’s Notes: The Winslows are planning a Mormonesque family fun night and Laura — played by me — asks Carl if she can instead go to this party a cute boy invited her to, and Carl — played by Brian with a pillow in his shirt — gets pissed at the mere suggestion and puts his foot down: Laura’s not going to that party. I yell back, “I’m a grown woman, daddy! I’m a grown woman!” Just then Maxine honks the horn to pick me up and I run out of the house and go to the party. But when we get there — new scene — everybody’s just sloppy drunk, including the “cute guy” played by hairy Derek. He hits on me, calls me “hot legs”—funny cause we’re dudes — and I slap him and run all the way home and apologize to Carl and we hug and I say my wrap-it-all-up line, “I guess what I learned is that family really does matter,” and boom — end of skit. But you know that kid Randall? Chip on his shoulder? Wears a wife-beater everywhere? He comes up to me after the skit misty-eyed and says that his family’s been through a lot lately — brother’s in jail for gang stuff — and he wants me to know that the message of our skit really spoke to him. I’m like, whaaa? I almost said, “Look dude, the cabin was looking for an excuse to stuff pillows in our shirts and act drunk,” but I thanked him and gave a thumbs-up, terrified he was about to hug me.

Here light the delusions of the coddled.

Here may we better utilize the tetherball court.

Here may campers refrain from saying “punk” when they mean “prank.”

Here may we grant merit to the long-dead’s shruggy explanations for the sun’s once-mysterious patterns.

Here sufficiently distract this summer’s parade of closet pyros.

Here prove nature’s got its moments.

Here honor scrapes as proof of joie de vivre.

Here persuade Deb not to unjustly inflate egos at the craft hut.

Here urge Grant and Kyle to make sure the unwary volunteer they pick from the audience during the Ugliest Man in the World skit isn’t actually one of the ugly kids.

Here remind Candice it’s not her responsibility to break up the pack of Hispanic girls or to impose “a language everyone can enjoy.”

Here reward skepticism toward inoculation.

Here may we, come Sunday, require a whole day and night of recovery sleep.

Here may we honor the Lutheran couple who founded this ranch, their names irrelevant to their legacy, their breath cold on our necks.

*

Dear Mom,

Though a tactical failure, the Vietnam War really was waged with admirable intentions. Eager to hear your thoughts.

Billy

The handbook is sort of ambiguous about the legality of lake pirates, Darla, though it does define them. “Lake Pirates are a brigade of scrappy nautical youngsters, traditionally from Boys Cabin 3, who scourge Lake Pawachee in their mighty canoe, tipping the boats of unsuspecting girls.” And see, here’s an ink drawing — the caption reads, “Boys being boys.” So it’s tricky. Boat-tipping is sort of an institutional Prank of the Century. I can tell you that the ferocity with which they tipped you was absolutely not personal, that Lake Pirates are often kind and flirtatious and even apologetic when landlocked. That when you explain the personal value of the necklace that’s now forever lost to lake floor, their faces will be contrite, their hmm s thoughtful, and their nods emphatic. They may even mean it. But make no mistake — they will tip you again. If it helps, I’ll make an announcement before free time saying the you-know-whats on a certain body of water better cut out their this-that-n-the-other, but I’m gonna be smiling while I say it. Fun Camp is pro-prank, Darla, and that’s worth more than a hundred grandma necklaces. Best thing, if you truly don’t want to get pranked, is to spend your free time under the Tree of Safety putting puzzles together with the asthmatics. But even sweeter is get some girls together and avenge that necklace.