Good morning, campers! Picking up where we left off yesterday, I am pleased to share with you the remaining two of the Five Greatest Pranks We Ever Pulled.
Numba' Two: Before we went to camp, we had plans. Mission objectives, if you will. We had pranks already picked out. We had backup pranks if we had to abort the main prank. We had specific targets that we assigned code names. We had GPS, suitcase nukes, Humvees. We were at war, people.
There was a kid on youth staff for a while named Matt. Matt was extremely strange. Part of it was the way he looked. He was "Jeff-sized," despite being only 15-years-old. Part of it was the way he talked. Imagine Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, and Diane Rehm all rolled into one. It caught most people off guard for the first time to hear this slow, mousy, lispy voice come from this man the size of a Ford Festiva.
A big part of it was the crippling social effects of being that fat. He was always crying at the mildest slight. He often ate his food in private because he was embarrassed about the size of the portion and he was constantly paranoid about what people were saying about him, his voice, and his size behind his back.
As cruel as teenagers can be, especially boys, we actually never ripped on Matt about his size. In fact, we never ripped on anyone in any meaningful way, for that matter. That's part of the spirit of American youth camps. It's a safe place where you can go and be yourself, far away from the judgment of your family, your teachers, and your classmates.
Sure, you would get a good-natured ribbing if we found a New Kids on the Block tape in your Walkman, or if someone recognized your feet under the stall door while you were taking a big, noisy, smelly deuce, or if they caught you holding hands with some girl with braces, but that was about the extent of it. No one got it for being fat, poor, ugly, tall, short, smart, or stupid.
Matt, for all of his oddities that made him a miserable sod in real life, came to camp and was treated with a deference that he likely never received anywhere else. And then he threw it all away.
Article comments
1 - Anne
OMG I LOVED THESE PRANKS
2 - Nicole Anderson
I am the Director, Programming at a Ranch that has a summer camp program for 300 kids...and that means 100 staff and many many pranks. In fact I was googling to find some originals when I found your blog.
Incredible writing style and topic. It had me laughing the whole way through and it also had me a bit sad remembering the pranks of yesteryear that if to be done now I would find myself in court with some parent and/or camper screaming foul.
Thank you so much for sharing!
3 - Andrew
Hilarious! That was utterly hilarious! I laughed the whole way through. I'm a 15 year old Eagle scout in Connecticut and I enjoy the occasional prank at summer camp. I'll be going again in a couple days and I think what I and the other senior boys try will now have to involve a whole lot of plastic wrap!
Last year, in the middle of the night, we filled the tent of two of our younger scouts with as many branches, leaves, and rocks as we could find. This was done with the utmost care, taking about two hours in total. As a finishing touch, we tied the tent flaps together as tight as possible. Ah, good times. And I look forward to more in the very near future.
4 - R. Wing
Meh. Cliche.
5 - Sarah
that was great, i laughed all the way through it! im a counsellor at an all-girls camp, and this summer was just one great prank after another. the best one was done by our LITs...they stole the LIT trainer's bike, and hid it in the woods. she couldn't find it, so they recovered it, and zoomed through the parking lot (right past her), took it to our "long house" (basically a gym) and hoisted it into the air bear hang style. she was obviously not pleased, and retaliated by removing the poles from their tents.
6 - Joseph
That was a great story, i laughed the whole time, im almost done with my Eagle Project and i remember a lot of camp pranks; collapsing tents, Going TP'ing, launching rotten egg's and potatoes at the Staff Tents, putting all the Weather Rocks (A rock hanging from a tri-pod) on the Mess Hall roof, and the best of all - Saran Wraping 13 of the Staff Members Cars