Hashtag Good Bad and Ugly

Working as a counselor is certainly an interesting experience. Every day brings some good moments, as well as some bad ones. Today was a bit of a roller coaster, so I figured I'd just write down the highlights here for you guys.

By second period at camp today, I had already lost myself to uncontrollable laughter twice. Now, as a little bit of background information, I have a camper who does not like to participate in anything. He's always whining, and I'm not entirely sure that he understands sarcasm--or humor in general, for that matter. Today, another camper of mine told him that he was going to be hung up like a pinata, and he believed it. Naturally, he started freaking out, and we had to calm him down and tell him it was a joke. This, of course, is a lot harder to do when your sides hurt from laughing hysterically. Which I was. He seriously thought we were all going to beat candy out of him. I couldn't look at him for a good five minutes and have any luck keeping a straight face.

After that, during second period, another camper of mine decided he was going to show us a "note from his mother", which, strangely, was written sloppily in orange magic marker. It read: "[Camper's name]* does it haft to go in the pool"--seems legit. We showed the note to some of the counselors from other groups, who found it incredibly amusing, as well as the director, who said it was the "best note of the summer so far." I'm inclined to agree.

*Note: If you've heard me talk about these stories in person, you may know my campers' names; however, I feel weird actually saying their names on the internet, so I'm keeping it anonymous, at least for now. I'm not sure if it matters, but better to be safe than sorry. Something something confidentiality something something.

Of course, the good times, they have to come to an end. The rest of the day consisted of the pinata-to-be whining about everything. Didn't want to participate, didn't want to listen. The soccer coach--bless him and his astounding patience--did everything he could just to get this kid to kick the ball a little. Guy seriously deserves a medal. I could never do that. Kid's impossible.

We were only able to get this camper to participate once more over the course of the entire day--he actually won a game of Nukem for his team by some miracle. But even after doing well at the game, he refused to play it any more than the once, and started to throw a tantrum. This was not his first, and certainly not his last, but the final straw today was a few periods later, when he decided to "accidentally" pour woodchips in my hair and down my shirt.

Now, I agree with my co-counselor that this isn't normally something you'd take a camper to the director's office for. But after five weeks of increasing disrespect towards camp staff, enough was enough. And here's why the "ugly" in the title of this post is warranted. It's me. I made it get ugly. Normally I'm calm, collected, and relatively jovial, but something about the proud little smirk on his face when he said "oops, it was an accident" just made something inside snap. He knew it wasn't an accident. He knew it was wrong. And he was proud of himself for doing it. That kind of attitude is not one I will ever accept from a camper, nor from my own kid should I have one some day.

I didn't yell, though. I didn't get angry in the traditional sense. I just got very stern and serious--as well as a lot less verbose than normal. I could tell it was unsettling to more than just the woodchip-bearer--the other campers who were playing Magic with me at the time of the incident instantly went silent. The kid almost threw another tantrum, but something about the sudden burst of un-moving authoritativeness in my voice kept him from being as disobedient as he had been for the rest of the day. He knew I wasn't having any more of his shit. I told my other campers that, unfortunately, due to their fellow camper, the game of Magic we were playing would have to be cut short, and promptly took him to the director's office to have a talking to.

For the rest of the day, the kid was silent. He didn't cause any more trouble, and didn't raise his voice to us again. Something about seeing the least serious counselor suddenly become the most stern person on the playground must've really struck a chord. If someone who's normally really chill becomes angry with you, you know you must've really messed up. I'd prefer not to have to do that again, but if I get pushed that far I will. Hopefully my campers now know better than to assume I don't have limits of what I'll put up with.