Three Things I wasn't expecting at Winter Retreat

1. A camper to throw up in the kitchen.
It wasn't even as if we had any warning because by the time he told his counselor he felt sick it was too late. I have never seen a kitchen vacate so quickly. I wasn't in there at the time, actually I was waiting to get in there, but I'm told it was rather spectacular. The kitchen, besides being a very small area to prepare food for forty campers, also doubled as the bank and general transaction center for a giant game of monopoly. It was quite the busy place during that game and usually crowded inside with a long line to get in there on the outside. Anyway, my guys and I were standing in line when suddenly we heard the girl's cabin ahead of us give a muffled shriek and run from the kitchen with their hands over their mouths as if it contained the plague. Poor Mrs. Fry was right behind them for, although she possesses the amazing ability to prepare three gourmet meals a day for forty plus people, she can not handle the sight of those same meals on their encore appearance and she was desperately trying to get out of the kitchen before she added her name to the sick list and made in an official two. Needless to say the game of monopoly went to a halftime break and all the campers crowded into the living room where the speaker for the week took upon himself the very difficult task of keeping them occupied and amused until we could clean up the mess. As it turned out our job wasn't much easier than his. We cleaned up the mess quickly with warm soapy water, but the smell was harder to eliminate. After searching in vain for a air freshener or something that smelled nice and clean like chlorox or strong detergent, one of counselors volunteered a girly perfume spray. Mr. Fry, the camp director, decided this was the best course of action and set to work happily spraying it around the kitchen until he thought it was sufficiently drenched for his wife. It solved the problem, but the kitchen had a very un-kitchen like smell for the next day or so. We all held our breath and prayed that the incident wasn't contagious. We could only imagine what it would be like if the whole lodge came down with it. Thankfully that was the end of it and we returned to our game (which we ended up losing anyway, but it was still fun.)

2. To get smacked in the nose with a Frisbee.
Technically I wasn't supposed to be playing frisbee because of my shoulder, but since I was in charge of it and ended up running up and down the field anyway, I decided I might as well join in and play. I figured I'd be safe as long as I played a conservative role and stayed away from the main action. Yeah Right! I hadn't been playing more than five minutes when the guy I was guarding tried to throw one over my head and between my arms. Unfortunately his aim was a little low and I ended up catching the frisbee right across the nose and under my right eye. Fortunately it didn't catch anything important – not that my nose wasn't important, but it's not the sort of thing you can do permanent damage to very easily – and after I managed to get my nose to stop bleeding and my eyes to stop watering, I was good to go again. I figured it would swell up and I'd look like Rudolph for the next to days, but surprisingly it wasn't bad. Besides feeling like I was trying to breathe through a nasty head cold that night, I barely noticed it.

3. To see a girl break a table.
To be fair to her, the screws holding it together were very short, but when she sat down on it, it cracked as if she'd hit it with a sledge hammer. I was couple of people away when I heard something crash and looked over to see a girl getting up from a split table with a rather shocked expression on her face. We managed to fix the table, but I imagine it's only a matter of time until someone else does the same thing. It's a sturdy looking table, but if you trust it too far it will let you down without a second thought.