Girl's Camp

I'm really tired today, but still wanted to write something of value, so I turned to the list of blog ideas, saw "Girl's Camp" and thought, 'Yep, that's a good one to write about since the tired I feel today compares a little with the tired I felt then.'

This is not for the light-stomached. I still kind of gag thinking about it.

Right after I turned 13, we moved to a different house in a different city. As spring approached, the mom across the street asked if I was planning on going to Girl's Camp (it's about a week long [sometimes more, sometimes less] camp that the Young Women ages 12-18 in the LDS Church attend to learn practical camping, survival, first aid, and other skills along with spiritual development). I missed out on going to Girl's Camp the previous year because I was in Mexico with Mom and Dad (another blog post that will take ages to write). Anyway, I told the neighbor mom I was not planning to attend because we weren't really a big camping family. In truth, I didn't want to go because I've always found it very difficult to be away from home overnight. Plus, it was far away and would be spent with a group of girls and leaders that I hardly knew.

Somehow, Dad found out that I had said I was not going to Girl's camp. He thought/felt it was a good idea that I go to bond with the other girls and make friends. In his defense, for that aspect, it was probably a good idea for me to go, but I went to school with all of those girls, so I did kind of know them. They just weren't in the crowd I hung out with at school. Dad was really trying to help and just wanted what was best for me. He encouraged (read: decided for) me to attend Girl's Camp. To appease him, I went through the process of getting certified and catching up with my age group so I wouldn't be behind everyone else. I'm sure the leaders were sick of me by the time Girl's Camp actually rolled around because I gave them grief at every turn in the certification process. It just wasn't my idea of fun, and I was only there for Dad, not because I wanted to be there.

The day arrived for Girl's Camp. I got up early, someone (probably Dad) took me to the church building with all my stuff, we loaded up in four-wheel drive vehicles, and we headed for the mountains. I was in a car full of girls who did nothing but giggle the whole way and talk about boys and who has a crush on whom. At 13, I still thought boys smelled funny and were only good for opening jars with too-tight lids. I was FAR from boy crazy and wished the entire ride in the car to camp I would have brought a library of books with me to read. It was torture to have to sit through that, and if I remember right, I think I ended up just talking to the leaders that were in the car with us.

We arrived at camp safely, unpacked the vehicles, made our way to our dorms/tents, and were told to quickly head back to the main lodge for name tags, shirts, and introduction activities. I threw my stuff on one of the bottom bunks in our dorm. As soon as I did so, one of the other girls a year younger than me asked if she could be my "bunk mate" and sleep on the top bunk. She was a fun girl and one that was always friendly, so I figured it couldn't be too bad and agreed she could have it. I noticed something flying around the eaves of our dorm and asked another girl about it. "Those? Oh, those are just birds. Sometimes they nest in the eaves. They won't bother you. It's fun to have them around!" And off we went to the lodge. All the while I thought, "Uh, I don't like things that fly and flap around. And I like it even less when birds chirp in the early morning and wake me up. This could get interesting."

We had a good time at the lodge, I learned people's names, found a group of girls I knew from school that I was comfortable with, and we sang songs, talked about crafts we were going to do, and got a schedule for the week. We were informed that showers were available, but they were in the girl's outhouse section of toilets, and the water was very cold. If we had long hair, they suggested we keep it tied up (braided, in a bun, etc.) for the week and plan to wash it when we got home. Me: "Um, gross." I could maybe go every other day without washing it, but almost a week? They were kidding, right?

I don't remember a whole lot about what we did during the days, but I do know we made some neat crafts, hiked, looked for and identified certain plants and animals, and generally had an okay time (for camping, I mean). I believe it was the second night we were there (that year camp went from a Tuesday to Saturday morning) that the leaders had us help them make chicken and dumplings in a cast iron stove over the fire, Dutch-oven style. Everyone pitched in and did their parts, but I was not excited to be eating that for dinner. I've always been a texture person, and that food looked like a blob of goo that was just going to get bigger the more you chewed it. I had, however, learned a lot about myself and my tolerance levels in Mexico, so I was trying to suck it up and be a big girl. I ate a couple of biscuits with a little bit of gravy on them and called it good. The other girls must have been starving because they ate every last bit of it.

We played games that night in our dorm, and I carefully watched the "birds" flying around in the eaves. They called for lights out, so we huddled down in our sleeping bags. Lots of the girls continued to talk and laugh into the night. I'm sure it drove our leaders crazy. It drove me crazy! I wasn't sleeping well because I was away from home, and they were jibber-jabbering until the sun came up (or so it seemed). Things finally got quiet, and I listened to the "birds" shifting in the eaves until I was so tired I basically passed out.

Early in the morning, before it was even light, I heard, "Geh. Ohhh. Geh. Cough." And then I felt it: SPLASH. And then I smelled it. Vomit. All over me. All over my pillow, all over my sleeping bag, all over my face and hair, and now dripping towards the floor and my bag of stuff for the week. The girl above me on the bunk bed had puked up her chicken and biscuits in her sleep. To make matters worse, she wasn't awake when she did it, so I leaned over quickly, shoved my bag to the other end of the bed (in hopes of saving some of my clothes from getting soaked in puke), and sat up in bed. Right as I sat up, she leaned over and heaved out the rest of her chicken and biscuits. It was all over my hair, face, and lap. I yelled her name, "Karolyn!", and she woke up from her sleep only to say, "Ew, I don't feel very good." Really? REALLY?! YOU don't feel good? I'm covered in your vomit and smell so bad it's a wonder every girl didn't wake up, and YOU don't feel good? One of the leaders woke up when she heard us talking. She turned on her flashlight and made her way over. I will never forget her holding that flashlight and dry heaving while she looked at me, looked at Karolyn, and told me to go get washed up in the girl's bathroom. I was covered in puke. Exactly how was I supposed to get cleaned up without leaving a trail of vomit behind me?

Thankfully, one of my hands was still sort of clean, so the leader grabbed me some clean clothes from my bag, sent me on my way, and she cleaned up the trail of puke after I left the dorm. Not so thankfully, I remembered as I stepped out the door that there had been a bear sighting earlier the day before, and they had specifically said, "DO NOT leave your dorms at night. If you have to go to the bathroom, go in pairs, and BE SURE to take a flashlight." There I was. On my own. Leaving the dorm in the middle of the dark night. Nobody to accompany me. No flashlight. Hands full of clean clothes, smelling like fresh chicken and biscuits. Just paint a target on my back and yell for the bear. I ran as fast as I could to the bathroom and quickly locked the door of the stall behind me. As if that would have kept a bear out. I used a massive pile of toilet paper to clean up the chunks of puke still hanging from me and wiped my face, arms, and hands off so I could put on clean clothes without getting puke everywhere.

As quietly as I could, I left the stall and turned on the water. Ice cold. And by ice cold, I mean Antarctic. It was the middle of the night. There'd been no sun out for a while to heat the water tanks a bit, which only remotely changed the temperature of the water from Antarctic to sub-zero. But I was desperate, so I rinsed out my clothes as well as I could and squeezed them as dry as I could get them. I used paper towels, soap, and Antarctic water to wash off the rest of my face, arms, and hands. There was no light, so I was going strictly by feel. I was shivering so fiercely that it felt like my internal organs would be blended like a smoothie. And then I remembered my hair. I knew it was covered in puke. And I knew there was NO WAY I was sticking a head full of starchy biscuits in that cold water. My dad was a dry cleaner by profession. I knew very well what cold water would do to that biscuit mess, and I knew they'd have to shave all of my hair off (hair that was nearly down to my rear end in length, mind you) to get the biscuits out. I needed hot water to get out of this hot mess. Instead, I ran my hands over my hair with the paper towels and tried to get as many of the chunks out as I could. When it felt semi-dried, I gathered up my vomit clothes and returned to the dorm.

As I walked into the dorm the leader says, "Why didn't you wash your hair?!" Dumbfounded, I looked at her. She asked me again. This time I said, "Look, lady. My dad is a dry cleaner. If I wash this hair in cold water it will make things worse. I'll have to shave my head." She could see (I guess) that I was in no shape to argue with, so she told me to go back to bed. "On what?" I asked. "My pillow and sleeping bag are covered in puke." She stared at me, sighed heavily, and said, "Can you just turn them over for now." I'm sure my look of disgust sent the exact message I intended, and I'm pretty sure she understood it. She and another leader said they'd be right back with paper towels and help me clean things up as best as we could. I dropped my cold, wet clothes near my bag and waited. A few minutes later, they were back with stacks of paper towels, and we wiped off my sleeping bag and pillow enough that I could turn it over and sleep. Karolyn? She was asleep the whole time. It was probably the best night's sleep of her whole life.

I got in my sleeping bag and hunkered down. While I was adjusting my pillow and trying to drag it into the sleeping bag with me in case of another "incident", I heard the two leaders talking and one asked the other, "Do you think we should tell the girls we're in a dorm with bats, or should we keep telling them it's birds?" My eyes the rest of the night: O-O. 

The next morning, I awoke out of my haze to girls complaining about the smell. Ugh. Yeah. It's me. And it's bad. Karolyn wanted to know what happened. Why did I have puke in my hair? "You put it there. You tell me." It was not the best morning I've ever had. (Mornings aren't good for/to me anyway.) And Karolyn was in denial. She honestly had no clue it had happened. Her only response, "Well, I'm starving! Do you think they'll have eggs for breakfast?" Sure, Karolyn. Eggs - just for you.

Everyone headed to the main lodge while I slowly got re-dressed and tried to put on some deodorant in hopes of not smelling TOO bad. It was a futile effort. Completely hopeless. So I walked to the lodge with my hair matted with puke. The other leaders were completely grossed out, and I asked one of the main leaders if I could please wash my hair in the warm water in the lodge where the main leaders were sleeping. The answer: no. If I washed my hair there than every other girl would think they should be able to wash their hair in the lodge. Riiiiiiiiight. "Okay." I said. "I'll just wait until I get home then." Their eyes for the rest of the day: O-O. They were NOT happy with me, but I held my ground and refused to wash my hair in cold water. At one point, I even explained what the cold water would do to the starchy biscuits. And I explained it in great detail. "It will first go to mush. Then, it will spread through the rest of my hair. No amount of shampoo will change that. I will be picking biscuit out of my hair for years to come unless I decide to shave my head." I'm sure they thought I was being dramatic, but I held my ground.

The day wore on. It got warmer outside. We were outside ALL day. The heat warmed up the puke. The puke started to smell worse and worse by the minute. Girls complained. Leaders complained. I just smiled and said, "It will all go away as soon as I can have some warm water to wash my hair." By that night, nobody could stand to be around me. I couldn't taste or smell anything but chicken and biscuits. Clarify: digested chicken and biscuits. There's a difference. Finally, when we went to the lodge for dinner, one of the leaders pulled me aside. She handed me a towel and some shampoo, and without saying a word, pointed to the lodge bathroom. Win. And bless her!

I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until my head was nearly raw. Hair that long needs conditioner, but at that point I didn't even care. I washed it multiple times until it squeaked as I squeezed the water out of it. The vomit had made my head itch uncontrollably, and it was nice to have that feeling gone. By the time I finished with my hair, everyone had eaten their dinner and gone back to their dorms. Someone saved me a plate of food, which I gobbled up quickly. I returned to the dorm to find that Karolyn had moved her bed and nobody was now sleeping above me. Another win.

The stench was gone, nobody else got sick, and we only had a couple of days left with the "birds" in the dorm, which I finally told everyone the night before we left were actually bats. That didn't go so well. Nobody slept that night, and every time one moved a girl would scream. It was justice, if you ask me. I hadn't slept because of them and because of the vomit for almost a week. Deal with it, you sissies.

I was so glad when Girl's Camp was over! Dad picked me up at the church when we got back to reality. "How was it?" he asked excitedly. "Do you think you'll go back next year."

Me: silence. And a death stare. 

And then I said, "I will never go back to Girl's Camp, Dad. And I'm not going to talk about it."

It wasn't until years later that he found out exactly what happened. His response? "No wonder you didn't want to talk about it." Ya think?!