By Libby Nook
June 20th marked the start of my life as a working woman. I was hired through a very intensive application process (a Google form survey), and soon after, I was hired as a counselor at Camp Sunny Happy Rainbow Farms.
After being hired, I was informed that I would be put on culinary staff for the mornings. My first question after receiving my assignment was, who in their right mind decided to give little children access to knives and fire under the supervision of teenagers? My second question was, who in their right mind decided to put me on culinary staff as someone who could barely make a grilled cheese sandwich? Unfortunately, my boss Bertha did not seem concerned about either of my questions, so the next thing I knew, I was in the kitchen.
My first day on the job was pizza day. In my opinion, it felt like war. By the end of the morning, I was covered in tomato sauce stains, which could have easily been mistaken for blood. Those little devils threw that goddamn sauce everywhere. “It’s like a snowball fight,” one of those menaces screamed as she chucked a tomato at my pelvis. It did indeed leave a bruise. Tommy almost chopped his finger off while cutting a tomato with a knife three times the length of his hand. Lulu, the only dairy-free camper, decided she wanted to eat cheese. Next thing I knew, she was crying because there was “doo doo” in her underpants, and I had to clean it. By the end of that morning, I realized this career was not worth the below-minimum wage pay.
Sooner or later, the culinary station ended, and the beasts hit the arts and crafts room. Now, at first, I enjoyed my time in arts and crafts. I helped tie friendship bracelets, distribute paint, and shuffle the Camp Sunny Happy Rainbow Farms playlist. It was all fun and games until little Abe approached me and simultaneously shoved a plastic bracelet bead up my nose. I couldn’t get it out for two weeks, and let me tell you, I tried everything: sneezing, sniffing, blowing. When I finally snot rocketed that bead out, I was tempted to shove it right back up Abe’s nose. However, I refrained because, unlike my little campers, I follow the camp motto: always be happy, be peaceful, and be kind.
After arts and crafts, my gremlins hit the lake. I was excited to end my day this way, hoping to rinse some of the remaining pizza sauce off of my limbs, but oh, was I wrong. Have you ever had eleven children under the age of 9 cling to you like koalas to a tree? Well, I have! I’m not religious, but I thank some sort of higher power every day that we were in the shallow area of the lake; if we weren’t, I can guarantee you that I would have died that day or at least needed to be rescued by a lifeguard.
Despite all of the traumatic events, nothing could have prepared me for pickup time. As the evil elves were awaiting their parents, who, might I add, did a horrendous job at parenting, I was making small talk with a few of the girls. “You look like Humpty Dumpty,” one of them said to me as her entire posse laughed in agreement.
I froze in complete shock. I was compared to the evil villain that haunted my childhood nightmares. Humpty Dumpty, bald, devious, round, and petty, kept me up at night for years. Everything then went blurry. Maybe it was because of dehydration. Nonetheless, all I remember is living one of my childhood recurring nightmares.
Humpty Dumpty sat on his wall. Humpty Dumpty had his great fall onto me-
CRASH
Has my dream come true? I remembered thinking. I lay flat on the ground, staring at the vast blue sky that was soon to be interrupted by Nurse Susan’s plump face. I soon realized that I had not been sat on by Humpty Dumpty and instead was run over by Nurse Susan’s golf cart. The good news was that I did not suffer any major injuries from the incident. Unfortunately, I did suffer the rest of the summer with the nickname “roadkill girl” by all of the little Satans.
Nonetheless, I am proud to say that despite all odds, I did indeed survive that summer. More importantly, I learned that I will never ever EVER have children.