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An age old Robinson family condition is that my brother gets plastered and then challenges me to a flexibility contest.  We once broke the door off of a microwave when we needed something between countertop and window sill.  I have brought this tradition to camp and yesterday we engaged in one using a staircase.

It was epic with critical moments like realizing that Scout pants aren’t up to the job, Bill Schilling learning that it’s cheating to have someone lift you while stretching and Joe Naylor learning there were some places the human foot was not meant to go and especially ways it shouldn’t get there.  Everytime someone walked in they looked at us strangely but eventually began cheering as Pat and Joe went into a kind of obese limber man’s game of PIG eventually resulting in Joe nearly destroying a telephone while using his right hand to pull his foot above his head.  In the course of this, we made a bit of noise and today one of the upstairs inhabitants talked to me about what happened.

Pool Director:  I was about to come down and chew you out until I heard you say “That table wasn’t mean to hold that kind of weight” and “Joe, don’t do it, your foot wasn’t meant to do that” followed by Tom’s belly laugh.  I figured I’d probably get involved too.

How cool would that have been?  A 55 year old aquatics director challenging a bunch of young turks to a foot lifting competition.  I think my instigation single-handedly decimated four separate crotches the next day, ironically, one was the health officer’s.

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Leader: There’s a problem in the adult male shower house
Me: Oh… What’s that?
Leader: One of the toilets is clogged.
Me: Isn’t there a plunger, sit?
Leader: Well, I tried plunging, but stopped when the water started over flowing.  Someone had a very loose stool and some of it got onto the…
Me: Thank you, sir.  I’ll take care of it. *Wait*  (over radio) Pat Toye.
Pat (over radio): Go for Pat
Me (over radio):  There’s a bit of a mess in the shower house. Do you have medical gauntlets?
Pat (over radio): Nope.
Me (over radio):  Well, assemble the war gear, I’m going to lead a sortie into enemy territory.

So, four of us arrive at the shower house and I was skirmisher in the first wave.  It looked like someone had a forceful bowel movement that clogged the john that he tried to de-clog with a hand grenade.  Without years of training, I would have been knocked back, but I know my enemy.  I’ve never become physically exhausted plunging a toilet.  Matt Grob and I went back and forth until finally I think we pressed so hard we cracked the cesspool.  I’ve never had to clean up after something like that such that I had to mop the walls and the bottom rim of the tank.  Never say never, I suppose.  I’ve never had to teambuild a toilet before.

When we were finished it was unclogged, restocked, bleached,disinfected (2nd agent), swept and mopped proving an iron law of dealing with these things.  The dirtier it was before the deed, the cleaner it is afterwards.

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WiFi access is now available at Totem Lodge for Leaders and Staffers that sign on to our licensing agreement.  Some leaders like it, really like it.  Today I realized how this changed the camp dynamic when I received this email:

Hi Terry,

What time is BSA Kayaking?

Thanks, (leader name)

That may seem unspectacular except that the leader was in camp, in Totem, next to a phone, surrounded by staff, and I was emailed the question.

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After I returned from my colonic incarceration I stopped by the health lodge for a status update regarding camp.  I got talking with Dr. Knopf about health and fonts came up.  I mentioned that Bill had written a letter in Comic Sans, he asked why that was a problem.

Me: This is why comic sans is a problem *shows Doc font*
Doc: Why would someone use that?  It looks like a collection of hemorrhoids.
Me:  Every time someone uses comic sans God kills a puppy.
Doc: It looks like a Nehru jacket, or
Me: A piano key necktie or mullet…
Doc: Yes.  Let’s see what else there is *looks at other fonts* Batang!  Now there’s a font.

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While I was out, people’s cars were being knifed in the parking the lot.  Today, a leader came in asking how this damage was going to be paid for and we talked about deductibles, privity and transfer of liability for publicly trafficked businesses.  The leader left much illuminated and more understanding of how property/casualty insurance works such as how someone damaging their car on camp property is different from a kid being injured and so on.  I imagine these questions had been asked by a dozen leaders earlier in the week while I was gone and my office chums had to dance awkwardly through the answers.   This is the one time I could have swung in from a vine to help hapless leaders and staffers confused about insurance law.  I could have been a hero.  Stupid gastroenteritis.

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I was sent home yesterday by one of the camp’s august medical experts after having shat in multiples of 5 for the last few days.  All was well, I thought, until I returned to camp, had a sandwich whereas a four hour count-down began to colonic destruction.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind being sent home, except for I have no bed (it’s at camp), no air conditioning (we’re cheap), and no amazing computer (it’s at camp).  I arrived at home, scared the shit out of my brothe’s friend in the garage, and was promptly visited by my mother who didn’t otherwise know I was home.  At this point, I was sweating over a bowl of hot soup, using my laptop, while my mother kept talking about her damn new house.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

Later, after my mother had asked me to see her tree fort (as I call her new house) two dozen times I went to play Team Fortress 2, thinking my brother’s computer would do.  22 inches on a dual core is nothing compared to 30 inches on a quad core.  I really wanted to go back to camp.  My dad arrived later, said hello, and I rolled my eyes when he proposed we have a quality family meal…. from Taco Bell.  I figured if I was going to shit like a firehose I should at least have an excuse.  He then asked me if I would be home for a day or so.  I said yes, and he told me to mow the lawn.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

I went to bed last night in my room that was covered in stuff that had been put there thinking I wouldn’t be back for a month or so, and cleared space for an air matress.  I did, and it leaked, from like four different spots.  I figure I’d try it and woke up 90 minutes later to a scene that looked like a bad rip off of “Death Bed, the Bed that Eats People” as I sink into the vinyl chasm.  I repeat the re-inflation/absorption cycle a 1/2 dozen times before my brother pokes in, says “the bed has a hole in it” and tells me to pick up a package for him in Langhorne.   I really want to go back to camp.

If I have to fake health with enough Imodium to constipate a sperm whale, by God, I will.

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I was sent home yesterday by one of the camp’s august medical experts after having shat in multiples of 5 for the last few days.  All was well, I thought, until I returned to camp, had a sandwich whereas a four hour count-down began to colonic destruction.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind being sent home, except for I have no bed (it’s at camp), no air conditioning (we’re cheap), and no amazing computer (it’s at camp).  I arrived at home, scared the shit out of my brothe’s friend in the garage, and was promptly visited by my mother who didn’t otherwise know I was home.  At this point, I was sweating over a bowl of hot soup, using my laptop, while my mother kept talking about her damn new house.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

Later, after my mother had asked me to see her tree fort (as I call her new house) two dozen times I went to play Team Fortress 2, thinking my brother’s computer would do.  22 inches on a dual core is nothing compared to 30 inches on a quad core.  I really wanted to go back to camp.  My dad arrived later, said hello, and I rolled my eyes when he proposed we have a quality family meal…. from Taco Bell.  I figured if I was going to shit like a firehose I should at least have an excuse.  He then asked me if I would be home for a day or so.  I said yes, and he told me to mow the lawn.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

I went to bed last night in my room that was covered in stuff that had been put there thinking I wouldn’t be back for a month or so, and cleared space for an air matress.  I did, and it leaked, from like four different spots.  I figure I’d try it and woke up 90 minutes later to a scene that looked like a bad rip off of “Death Bed, the Bed that Eats People” as I sink into the vinyl chasm.  I repeat the re-inflation/absorption cycle a 1/2 dozen times before my brother pokes in, says “the bed has a hole in it” and tells me to pick up a package for him in Langhorne.   I really want to go back to camp.

If I have to fake health with enough Imodium to constipate a sperm whale, by God, I will.

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The first two weeks of camp have gone stupidly well.  So profoundly smooth that I waiting for a meteorite impact, Biblical-scale flood or the discovery of an burial ground to ruin the fun.  Normally, we spend a bunch time fixing stuff each week and with so few hiccups we’ve had this time to improve camp.  One commissioner proposed having more clocks in camp.  So, we made him the camp’s official time keeper and equipped him with a Spongebob Squarepants analog clock so he roam the camp as the Mr. Rogers version of Flavor Flav with equally byzantine usage rules.  Today, we had the first test of our time keeper.

Administrator: What time is it?
Commissioner: 10:35 AM.
Administrator: You’re not saying it right.
Commissioner: Sigh… Spongebob says it 10:35 AM.
Administrator: Thank you.

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The first two weeks of camp have gone stupidly well.  So profoundly smooth that I waiting for a meteorite impact, Biblical-scale flood or the discovery of an burial ground to ruin the fun.  Normally, we spend a bunch time fixing stuff each week and with so few hiccups we’ve had this time to improve camp.  One commissioner proposed having more clocks in camp.  So, we made him the camp’s official time keeper and equipped him with a Spongebob Squarepants analog clock so he roam the camp as the Mr. Rogers version of Flavor Flav with equally byzantine usage rules.  Today, we had the first test of our time keeper.

Administrator: What time is it?
Commissioner: 10:35 AM.
Administrator: You’re not saying it right.
Commissioner: Sigh… Spongebob says it 10:35 AM.
Administrator: Thank you.

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There’s been a few sick staff members around and staff humor has once again kicked in, these are two exchanges around the fact that I’ve had horrible diarrhea.

Pat: How are you feeling?
Me: Crappy

and

Pat: How’s the poo coming
Me: I’m going to call my rectum William Faulkner, because the only thing it’s produced is the Sound and the Fury.