Camp Disney Sequel, part 1

I loathed summer camp. Yet this did nothing to deter my parents from sending my brother and I to the same Christian sleep-away camp in South Carolina every summer until we turned seventeen. I won't tell you the actual name of the camp, because I don't want to implicate myself in the event that some crazed arsonist burns the wretched place to cinders sometime in the near future. For now, let's call it Camp Disney Sequel, because everyone hates those.

Camp Disney Sequel was a foul and fiendish place, and not in the good way like a Cradle of Filth music video, it was in the bad way, like Mordor. The rolling hills, fresh mountain air, and arboreal verdancy were an insidious disguise for what I am pretty sure was actually a bona-fide level of Hell.

Many summer camps, you see, are filled with people. Like, a lot of people. In the hundreds. I'm talking about a metric shit-ton of people. And you're consigned into a 'cabin', a group of about eight other people of your age and gender, presided over by a couple of counselors and a wretched creature called a C.I.T (counselor in training), and you spend literally every second with these people. You wake up surrounded by your 'cabin', you have breakfast with them, you do activities with them, you eat lunch with them, you do more goddamn activities with them, you eat dinner with them, you go to bed with them, you sleep with them, and then you start the whole thing over again. You don't get a second of solitude even in the bathroom, because you are not allowed to walk the five feet to the shower house by yourself lest you suddenly forget how to breathe or something, and when you go to heed Nature's call you have to listen to your entire cabin pounding on the door and telling you to hurry up because the little wooden shack you all share has only one toilet. And you can't be like, "Okay, fuck this noise, I'm gonna split for a couple of days. I'm gonna go off and live in a tree all alone to return my heart rate to normal and enjoy some goddamn peace and quiet. Smell y'all later."

Also? These people are terrible and devoted to making you suffer.

A List of Atrocities Committed Against My Person by Employees and Fellow Inmates at Camp Disney Sequel, In No Particular Order

1.

In my second-to-last year, the sixth Harry Potter book came out right before I was to arrive at Camp Disney Sequel, so I was all jazzed to read it. But one of counselors overseeing my cabin that year (let's call her Bitchtaint) decided that she didn't like my face or something, and would not let me read this book that was mine because I had purchased it and therefore was within my legal right to do whatever I damn well wanted with it.

Bitchtaint first caught me breathlessly absorbing Chapter 2: The Unbreakable Vow (and having swoony-swoons over my boyfriend Professor Snape) at the opening campfire instead of listening to the camp director play his guitar and sing 'One Tin Soldier' for the eleventy-billionth time. Bitchtaint told me to stop. I stared at her like, "Fool, this is Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince and I think 'One Tin Soldier' is the only song this guy knows." and went right back to reading.

Bitchtaint repeated her request with the addition of a low, menacing, "I'm serious."

I made a show of sighing and putting my book on the ground, and the second she looked away, I propped the book open with my feet and leaned forward to continue reading. In retrospect, Bitchtaint was not making an outrageous demand, but in my defense this was a Harry Potter book and it had just come out. If it had been any other book I probably would have put it away. I would have sulked out of principle, but I wouldn't have been such a shit about it. However, considering that it was Harry Potter and it had just come out, I consider my actions perfectly understandable.

Upon our return to our wooden shack that evening, Bitchtaint rounded on me and angrily informed me that she had seen me reading after she had expressly forbade it. My response amounted to, "Yeah, shit happens," and on the spot Bitchtaint decided that she didn't like me reading Harry Potter period, because it promoted witchcraft. This declaration served only to amuse me.

I was less amused when Bitchtaint confiscated my book.

My book. She confiscated it.

One second my book was in my hand, and the next, it wasn't. She had it.

She took my book.

She took my book.

SHE TOOK MY BOOK.

If she had asked me to hand the book over, it would surely have come to physical combat. Bitchtaint clearly knew what the score was, because she just straight up snatched it out of my hands before I could do anything to stop her. And I was shocked, shocked. I stood there with my gob hanging open as she carried my book away and put it in her trunk at the foot of her cot.

I felt the earth tilt under my feet. My vision swam. I could smell colors. My entire world teetered on the brink. It was all so incomprehensible to me. I was so shocked that I could do nothing but stand there gaping like an idiot, and then slowly turn around and climb up into my bunk, defeated.

I lay there all night, staring at the metal ceiling and trying to comprehend what had just happened to me. I felt like a character in a Lovecraft story whom had just gazed into an abyss of cosmic horror and was left stripped of anything resembling sanity, grappling with a soul-raping despair at the terrible knowledge of the true bleak nature of being.

She took my book.

The next morning, I approached Bitchtaint and politely asked that she return my property. She refused. I restrained the urge to bite her. She informed me that these books promoted anti-Christian values and clearly had a negative influence on me. I wondered why I was restraining myself from biting her, since she was obviously asking for it. If such an incident occurred today, I would calmly explain to Bitchtaint that she was perfectly free to her beliefs, but my values were not for her to decide and it certainly was not within her rights to police my choice of reading material.

But this happened back when I was still a teenager, a very angry time for me, so I growled, "It's my book and my values are none of your damn business."

So I didn't get Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince back until the the last day of camp.

Day after day I was trapped in a singing, cheery hellscape surrounded by people relentlessly trying to coax me into taking part in some wholesome activity or another, and my one escape was entirely cut off. Perhaps I have no specific memory of my ordeal because I spent it shuttered within the confines of my mind, my last true refuge.

I engaged my hours in fevered contemplation of the yet-to-be-discovered fates of such beloved characters as populate the Harry Potter series. I had silent, mental interviews with them, trying to puzzle out their true allegiances. I concocted detailed fantasies of the Death Eaters' attack on Camp Disney Sequel, in which it would be up to me and my latent, just-suddenly-realized magical abilities to defend the other campers until Dumbledore's Army and The Order of the Phoenix respectively arrived to our rescue. Of course, there would be casualties. Bitchtaint in particular would suffer multiple applications of the Cruciatus curse only to be blown to messy smithereens by an errant flick of a wand. The camp director would be magically imprisoned within his own guitar and forced to listen to it play 'One Tin Soldier' endlessly into eternity. The seven other girls in my cabin would be rendered irreversibly mute and unable to ever annoy me again. My boyfriend Professor Snape, thrilled by my skill in the magical arts and bravery in battle, would approach me to deliver some barbed compliment in as derisive and snarky a manner as is his wont, and I would effortlessly match wits with him thereby earning his deepest respect and eternal Wuv.

It was this lurid vision that kept me from losing my grip as I dutifully marched alongside my cabin or sanded my pitifully-simple-to-construct wooden birdhouse. It was what kept me from surrendering to the void. It was what kept Bitchtaint alive and breathing rather than having her foul head mashed to a slimy pulp by aforementioned birdhouse.

Truly, J.K. Rowling has given me much.

To be continued...

The B.A.R.W.F and the Christian Soldier

This past weekend at a family function in Texas, I had something of an alarming encounter. Actually, I had two.

The function took place in a rented hall in a park, and I soon found the interior of said hall rather stifling and creepifying. What with certain social anxieties, being immersed in a large group of humans tends to make me uncomfortable, let alone humans who expect--nay, demand that I interact with them. People who know me tend not to invite me to their parties, not because they don't like me (because let's face it, I'm spectacular) but because they know that I'd just be miserable.

After greeting the seemingly-endless parade of extended family members and allowing my person to be hugged far more times than anyone should have to endure, I was getting a bit twitchy and wild-eyed. The odds of my being able to stave off the impending panic attack were looking nil. With as much decorum as possible (well, I didn't hit anybody) I excused myself to scuttle behind the bar and extract from my purse a book and my cigarettes, and then I fled.

Once outside the hall, I walked down the lane a bit and crossed the river by way of a train bridge. On the other side I found a cozy, secluded spot on the riverbank with a tall oak tree whose roots formed a niche perfectly shaped to sit in. I plunked down, lit up, and gratefully oozed into the safe shelter of fiction like a neurotic snail.

Happy hours were spent in this manner. The story, solitude and nicotine calmed me right down and every so often I'd look up from the book to admire nature's rich pageant all around me. I was most fascinated by the river, because it was blue. It was really, actually blue. In Florida, where I live, all the water is brown, contaminated, and full of snakes and alligators. This, however, looked just like the water on TV, and it was full of cute, fluffy duckies that were emboldened by a lifetime of receiving breadcrumbs from parkgoers. These ducks had no problem whatsoever swimming right up to me and floating well within arm's reach, expecting food.

I was soon to discover that the ducks were not the only hungry river denizens.

I was fully engrossed in my book, nearly bent double over its pages and making my really weird, scrunched-up, 'reading' face that a friend of mine once said makes me look like Renee Zellweger after licking a turd. I was vaguely aware of a short of shuffling, slapping noise getting closer, but as this had nothing to do with the thrilling adventures of Daenerys Stormborn, I ignored it. Then I felt a sudden tap on my leg. I looked down, and my first thought was, Holy guacamole, R.O.U.S.'s are real!

This beast was actually, I later was informed, a nutria. Nutrias are semi-aquatic rodents originally native to South America and known as a pest species in Texas. Not knowing this at the time, I at first thought that it was some kind of mutant. Not technically a Rodent of Unusual Size, a more apt description would be 'Big-Ass Rat With Flippers'.



I stared down at the B.A.R.W.F that sat at my feet. It looked back up at me, unafraid and expectantly awaiting scraps like a little dog.The brazen rodent had actually clambered up out of the river and batted at my leg with its webbed paw, and was now looking right at me as if to say, Here I am. Aren't I cute? I would like my bread now.

Rodents don't bother me. I've had pet rats for years, and the B.A.R.W.F.'s dark brown fur and shiny black eyes reminded me of my d'Artagnan back home. Once I got past the flippers and the creepy orange teeth, it really was cute. I felt sorry that I hadn't brought any food from the hall with me, and entertained the notion of going back to get a miniature sandwich for the B.A.R.W.F as well as another beer for me. But I decided not to, as any sudden movement like standing up would probably startle the B.A.R.W.F. into biting a hole in my new pantyhose and also my tender flesh.

I shrugged in as non-threatening a manner possible. "Sorry. I don't have anything for you."

The B.A.R.W.F stared at me for a little while, probably deliberating whether or not I was lying, then turned and shuffled off back to the water and swam away.

But then...

The next time I heard footsteps coming toward me, you'd better believe I looked up immediately. This time it was no hungry river-monster, it was something much worse: another person. It was a middle-aged-looking male person that I did not recognize as even one of my most distant relations, heading right for me, who was tucked into this secluded corner of the park, as it was getting dark.

One thing I am thankful for is that in situations like these my brain goes into this Default Danger Mode where it immediately bypasses fear and goes straight to defensive hostility. It saves time and a lot of stress, but the downside is that it has this side effect of inexplicable confidence that causes me to drastically over-estimate my fighting ability. You wanna approach me in a poorly-lit space when I'm all alone and there's no one within five miles to hear me scream? I dare you. Wanna sneak up on me in an alley with a switchblade in each hand and a gat between your teeth? I'll be sure to give you your liver in a easily-transportable plastic snack baggie when I'm done with it.

As Herr Creepenheimer creeped on over, I looked right at him (no longer making the Renee Zellweger turdface) and readied myself to swing the full weight of my book into his jaw. If need be, I would call for my friend the B.A.R.W.F. to come and aid my attack.

"Good evening," said Laird McCreeps.

I reponded with only a glare that said, Do not tempt me to feed tiny chunks of you to the duckies.

"Are you a Christian?"

Just like that, my vengeful bloodlust deflated. He wasn't a creeper, just a nosy religious fellow. "Is it any of your business?" I replied, my voice a bit sharp with residual aggression.

"Oh, I believe that leading as many people as possible into the light of our blessed lord Jesus Christ is the business of every good Christian Soldier."

Why do they call themselves that? What do Christian 'soldiers' ever fight, other than their own masturbatory urges?

"That's very nice of you, sir, but I'm not interested."

And then he produced a tract card and dropped it onto the open pages of my book. "Well, okay. I don't mean to bother you or anything, just take a look at this, and think about it some. Maybe you can use it as a bookmark."

I said nothing. The Christian Soldier smiled and departed, and I shut my book. Clearly, the park was no longer safe. It was getting too dark to read anyway.

I returned to the hall just in time for everyone to hug me goodbye.

On The Good Strip Lollipops

NOTE: The following is based on true events. Names have been changed to protect the guilty, and so my mum won't yell at me.



So, last weekend I had to help my drunk mother and her friend rescue my significantly drunker great uncle, his girlfriend, and my mum's friend's boss's sister from a strip club called Lollipops.

This is my life.

We were all having dinner together in a bar. I drank water, because the only reason my parents even had me was so that they could have a designated driver at all times. The other members of the party, having nothing to do for the next two days but watch NASCAR on tv, took advantage of the opportunity before them and put away enough alcohol to prepare them for life suspended in jars in a middle school biology classroom. When last call rolled around I, in my naivete, assumed that I could at last bundle my mother into her minivan and take her home.

But my mum's friend's boss's sister, who for the remainder of this entry shall be referred to as 'Debbie', was not ready to park her party wagon, and jubilantly suggested that we continue our evening at Lollipops. She was not referring to a candy store. My great uncle and his girlfriend particularly warmed to the idea, and after failing to convince my mother or her friend to join them, tried to persuade me.

Maybe I'm just one of those stodgy, boring squares who can't handle a real party, but somehow the idea of visiting a titty bar with two middle aged women I barely knew and my great uncle, a man who once forewent his jersey and shaved his number into his back hair for a company softball game, was less than tempting.

So the merry band sallied forth to Lollipops and I breathed a sigh of relief, because I was tired and had been socializing for far too long for my health and I had just started the fourth Song of Ice and Fire book and was anxious to go home and read it so I could learn the fate of my boyfriend Sandor Clegane. Alas, almost immediately after they left, my mum's friend proceeded to freak the hell out.

"This is not good! This is so baaaaaaaaad! Uncle Ed just took my boss's sister to a strip club! This is not a good situation! This is bad! Oh nooooooooooooo!"

For the next forty minutes my mother and I huddled in the parking lot while her friend bemoaned the circumstances that led to the peril in which her job had fallen, using the phrase "my boss's sister!" in every other sentence, and coming close to tears. We reached the consensus that we should have gone with them to keep an eye on them and make sure they got home safely, though I secretly gave thanks that I had not been called upon to try and wrangle five drunks in a strip club. I no sooner thought this, then my mum and her friend decided that we had no choice but to go and get them. My mum's friend called out to a man passing by on the sidewalk and asked him if he knew where Lollipops could be found, and he immediately gave us directions. Before departing, he cheerfully assured us that if we got lost, we could just ask anybody, because everyone around here knew where Lollipops was.

I then had to shepherd my mother and her friend across the parking lot to the minivan, my mum's friend focusing more on expelling blubbering gratitude than on her own motor functions. As we neared the car, my mother suddenly gasped, her eyes going wide.

"Oh my God, I'm making my twenty-two-year-old daughter take us to a strip club!" she wailed.

At which point, my mum's friend laughed and wet her pants.

After assuring her that her trousers were dark enough that no one would notice the stain, I managed to get her into the backseat, and my mother took shotgun. I got in the car, and we sped off into the night. My mother's friend spent the drive reprising her earlier consternations, with extra repetitions of "my boss's sister!"

We ended up getting lost, but at least I found out that you can find strip clubs in your GPS. When we finally made it to Lollipops, my mum and her friend hesitated on the sidewalk and insisted that I go in by myself. Yeah, no. Who knew what shenanigans they could get up to out in the street without supervision? Besides, I had never been in a strip club before, and had very little desire to become acquainted with anybody's funbags but my own. Luckily, my mum and her friend were not hard to bully into coming with me as booze makes them docile, and in we went.

I explained to the bouncer that some friends of ours had come in earlier and we wanted to make sure they were okay, and after seeing my ID, he was kind enough to let us in free of charge. Inside it was lit only with black light bulbs and the flashing, spinning, multicolored spotlights on the stage. The music was loud and pounded in my head. The whole place smelled overwhelmingly of lemon-scented cleaning solution, which was suspicious and discomfiting. It was also crowded with people, men and women. The men appeared to range in apparent age from high school kids with fake id's to a few elderly gents, and a good number of them had female dates. The strippers themselves circulated about the club, chatting up people at the bar and surrounding tables, their scanty costumes sparkling and their enormously tall shoes clip-clopping like hooves.

My mum, her friend, and I scanned the crowd for a familiar face and saw none. My mum and her friend began to talk amongst themselves ("this place is so icky!" "my boss's sister!") whilst I, a curious soul, observed my surroundings. I saw a stripper subtly pick her thong out of her butt as she chatted with a group of men in golf gear. A few tables away, an inebriated youth was exchanging high-fives and having his picture taken with a man who, judging by the youth's elated cries, he believed to be Zach Galifianakis. It wasn't Zach Galifianakis, it was just a guy with a beard.

"Heeeeey," I heard my mum mutter over my shoulder. "Doesn't that guy at the bar look like Uncle Ed?"

I followed her pointing finger. There, indeed, was Uncle Ed, waiting on his drink order with a woman in a shiny gold bikini standing close as a vital organ.

"That is Uncle Ed!" my mum's friend yipped.

I squinted my eyes. "Where did he get that hat?"

Looking closely at the nearby tables, we soon found Debbie and my great uncle's girlfriend and hurried over to them. Debbie caught sight of us and grinned like Paula Deen at the thought of butter. "You caaaaaaaaaaaaaame!" she shrieked, a complete and sincere delight writ large on her face. Uncle Ed's girlfriend had not noticed us, she was watching Uncle Ed and his new friend, eyes narrowed.

When Uncle Ed eventually returned with drinks in hand, my mum, her friend, and I were bid to join them, and only through acquiescing to one more round of drinks did we persuade the others to agree to leave with us. I grudgingly sat down, telling myself that since my boyfriend Sandor Clegane has his own proclivity for getting drunk and weepy, this would all be good practice for when we get married. I don't care that he's fictional, it will happen.

For about an hour, I sat at that table while Uncle Ed and his girlfriend argued, my mum and her friend struggled to remain conscious, and Debbie stared around in wide-eyed wonder at the surplus of bright colors and boobies. The lights, music, and chemical lemon smell were starting to give me a headache. Even the strippers looked bored, and I noticed one yawning behind her fanned acrylic fingernails.

At long last, everyone finished their drinks and I stood up to try and marshal the troops outside. Uncle Ed's girlfriend ignored me and sauntered off to the bar, and Debbie began to excitedly tell us that there was a back room where the strippers would have sex with patrons. There was no point in calling after Uncle Ed's girlfriend because the music was so loud that I could feel the bass thudding in my teeth, so I sat and waited for her to come back. Debbie seemed elated at the idea of paying a stripper to have sex with one or more of us, and repeatedly insister that we would get a girl and go to the fabled back room. My mother and I exchanged raised eyebrows. My mum's friend shrieked in horror as she finally noticed that the black lights were making her pee stain glow.

Uncle Ed's girlfriend returned swiftly, pink of face and bereft of drinks, and told us that while she was trying to get the bartender's attention, a stripper had squeezed up next to her and breathily informed her that she 'liked blondes'. Uncle Ed looked smug.

At that moment, Debbie joyously shouted, "HEY! OVER HERE!" and a stripper in an aqua blue bikini and platform high heels that put her feet at about the level of my shins trotted over to our table. Debbie asked her for a lap dance. The stripper did not seem too pleased with this, and began yelling at Debbie.

"Yeah, right, cause I'm a total bull dyke, right?!" the stipper demanded of a wide-eyed Debbie. "'Cause I have 'I Eat Pussy!' tattooed across my forehead, right?! Do I have 'I Eat Pussy!' tattooed on my fucking forehead?!"

We all stared, shocked. I felt sorry of Debbie.

Then, suddenly, the stripper changed her tune and burst out with a toothy grin. "I'm just messin' with you, baby doll. MOTORBOAT!"

And then my mother, her friend, Uncle Ed, his girlfriend, and I watched as the stripper tugged her top open, grabbed Debbie's head, and mushed her face into her boobs.

We heard a muffled, "Woooooooooo!"

After the stripper departed, I managed to get everyone up and out the door. Debbie was smiling and giggling, "I don't understand what just happened."

By the grace of the gods, I got everyone out of Lollipops and safely home, and by the time I got into bed my head was throbbing. There was a faint ringing in my ears, and I could smell the lemon-cleaner lingering in my hair. I leaned back on my pillow and stared longingly at my book, lying where I had left it on the nightstand.

I reached out to tenderly run my finger down its spine. "I'm sorry, baby. I just can't tonight," I sighed. "I have a headache."