Staff training was in full swing...
Editors note:
Training of summer staff is really only half as fun as it sounds, most of time is spent listening to the leaders talk about camp rules and what to not do. what to do if a kid throws up on your bed after eating a Costco sized bag of sour gummy worms while they are pretending to be asleep. [editor's note to editor: first off why does the kid have a Costco sized bag of sour gummy worms that filled half of their suitcase that had to be trucked in by two camels and a man you thought lived at the circus. either way he or she has eaten this whole bag in the time it took you to climb into your bed and tell the kid in the bunk above you to stop making popping sounds the first four times [trust me that is only the first 1/574.28 of the times they'll do it that week]. also you have to learn to not do anything that is fun, like who doesn't want to go down the slide into the lake blindfolded, head first, into shallow water, with no PFD, or swimming abilities; did i mention that the lifeguard is in the guard shed with his lady friend while this is going on?... but since that never happens at camp owtaluk we don't have to worry about this...got that? never happens*.
it seems that staff training is full of things that are to dangerous or to messy or to time consuming to set up or to way to much fun to have during normal camp [except maybe senior high camp...but we'll get to that]. You don't really see a lot of maturity at staff training, from the food fights to the mud bowl fights to the flipping canoes and splashing girls, there really isn't any space for maturity.
oh and of course the crushes start during staff training, the hopes of something will develop over the summer with that special someone [usually you either find out they don't even like you, or they have a boy/girl friend, or you break up a month after camp, or you just get married; it's really up in the air. as an ex-councilor myself i can definitely say i have been in each of these situations. that's actually how i met my wife...but you wouldn't want to hear about that would you.
...Kai had never felt more like a mess than he did at that moment. His bare chest and now ripped jeans were covered in a mix of food condiments, mud, and watermelon. His face and hair caked with pudding and dirt forming his hair into a tall fohawk out of his long shaggy hair. Kai walked back to his cabin knowing that even when he changed his clothes and took a shower in four hours he would be just as sweaty and covered in food as he was now.
Madison ran behind Kai throwing a buckets worth of water, from a broken ice-cream bucket from the game they had just played, on his back and head. Kai stood there the water mixing with the dirt running down his face. Some other guys walked past, "nice look man! fits you!" They laughed.
"Dude she keeps doing stuff like that, are you going to stand for it?" Brandon said walking up.
"i'm thinking we get back at her." Kai said wiping his face with his less dirty arm.
"you thinking pranks?"
"i like your style!"
"i like your moves!" Brandon said tossing an orange traffic cone to Kai. Kai caught it in an upward sweeping motion like a hockey goalie. "nice snag!"
"nice toss!"
"nice abs!" both boys looked at each other..."what!?"
*This is a common, not the slide stuff but the lifeguards are often in the guard shed, doing life guarding practice for mouth-to-mouth...since that's obviously what their doing...right.
