Science Camp, you had one job (Tubular):

I didn’t make a lot of friends at Science Camp, at least none that I can remember. I enjoyed all the time we weren’t in the cabins, or the ampitheatre talking about Jesus. The counselors were wonderfully freindly and intelligent people. I remember the first day we arrived at the camp, they ushered us off the bus and gave everybody instructions to go to their assigned cabins. Each cabin was assigned a counselor. Mine’s name was Jay. He wore very bright colored shirts, and flip flops everywhere he went. In fact, he was never in uniform as I remember most of the counselors were wearing. He had really long, and messy dreadlocks which I had never seen on a white person before. In fact the only other people I knew who had dreadlocks was my dad’s Barber James, and Sanka from Cool Runnings. I was the last kid into the cabin, so I had the last choice for picking my bed. I think Jay noticed this and called me over to the back. “Hey cool dude, nice shirt” he said to me in what I can only describe as the most Californian accent on the planet. “You can be my bunk mate, if you want. Dibs on the top bunk!” he said as he ruffled my hair. I appreciated his gesture and decided that I liked him the most. At lunch time, all the kids lined up to get their food. The other counselors were at different stations handing out food and introducing themselves. When it was my turn, one of the girls asked if I wanted a slice of pizza, “Yes, Please. Thank you.” I remember saying. The counselor’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped to the floor. In a very cowgirl accent she practically screamed, “Oh my Lord this is the most polite kid in this whole entire camp! You must have a really good mom!” If I could blush, I probably did. I didn’t really understand what the big deal was though, that’s just what we always did in my house. Shoe’s off in the house, please and thank you, Yes Ma’m, No Sir, never “what”. I decided to make sure that I kept up that routine for the entirety of Science Camp if it earned me points with the other counselors, which it did. They all wanted me to be in their classes during the little break-out groups. I never got to be in Jay’s group during those lessons though, the only time I saw him was when we were eating or back in the cabin. He was always teaching me how to talk to the girls, or how to wear my shirt un-tucked or how to be cool. Every night for dinner, each cabin would take turns giving a little “presentation” in front of the entire camp based on what lessons we learned that day. When it was finally our turn, we had spent all day talking about weather, different types of clouds, phases of the moon and its affect on the tides. Jay was really into this because he liked to talk about surfing and used a lot of surfing lingo when he talked. I had never spoke in front of a crowd of people before, so I wasn’t really crowd-shy…or so I thought. Before we went up and gave our little speech, Jay went over my part again. He wanted me to sound cool in front of everyone so he told me exactly what to say. In my head it sounded amazing! I was going to have the entire camp laughing their nuts off and then I’d be fighting off all the girls. It was a fool-proof line. One by one, the other kids in my cabin went up to the stage and spoke their lines, our theme was a 7 day weather forecast so we all said a line for each day of the week depending on the weather. I had Sunday (clear skies, warm weather and a full moon during the day bringing high-tides and good waves). I strutted out on stage, stood high and confident in front of that podium, the bright lights in my face, the murmur of the kids talking amongst themselves. I can see all the counselors at the other end of the stage waiting to congratulate me. I grabbed the mic, and spoke. I had never heard my voice before that moment, an unpleasant mumbling noise exited my mouth, like the 4 horsemen of the apocolapyse, carrying with it the 7  words that I would haunt me for the rest of my life. “ON SUNDAY, THE WEATHER WILL BE…TUBULAR!” I looked back at Jay, two thumbs up. And for the second time, a thousand parentless children had vanished without a trace. Not a peep, no giggles, just uncomfortable silence. I exited the stage towards the other counselors, for the first time I noticed that they were all barefoot. Odd.