This is a story I don’t get to tell very often because I’ve never had a reason to tell it. I guess if anyone ever proposed that we all go around sharing stories of how we shared a moment of sympathy with a psuedo-stranger, this would be perfect, but since that hasn’t yet happened in six years, I think it’s safe to say it isn’t likely to come up of its own accord.
Anyhow…
So in the summer of 2008, I spent my summer working at an overnight camp in Monticello New York. Naturally, being an overnight camp, all the boy cabins had male counselors and all the girl cabins had girl counselors. As such, we didn’t really get to interact with the girls throughout the course of our jobs, which wasn’t an issue for most counselors because when the kids went to bed every night (at around 9 or 9:30–I can’t remember), you basically got to congregate down by the lake where the main hall was and hang out with all your fellow counselors (except for twice a week when you were on night duty).
Now here’s the thing. I had a fairly important wedding to attend in late June that year, and while that didn’t prevent me from getting to the camp grounds in time for the first day, it did prevent me from being around for pretty much all of orientation. This not only meant that I had to learn the rules and routines of the camp in the two days before the kids showed up (which wasn’t too terrible), I also missed ALL of the “counselor-bonding” activities they did, which was designed to help you get to know your fellow workers for the summer (this was quite terrible). So as a result, aside from my two co-counselors and a few counselors from the adjacent bunks, I didn’t get to know anyone else, AND I WAS STUCK THERE FOR EIGHT WEEKS.
The silver lining in all this was that my co-counselors were really cool people and tried to include me in things they did, but I was absolute shite at meeting anyone else. I don’t know, I have social issues (and I don’t know why I thought that (a) working at an overnight camp for eight weeks was a good idea, and (b) missing orientation was an acceptable thing to do given my issues with… people). At any rate, the bottom line was, I did not get to know or meet very many of my fellow workers at camp that summer.
The other silver lining in all this was that I had a friend who was staying in Washington DC at the time, and she was nice enough to write me letters all summer and send me mix CDs. So that was nice (we didn’t have internet at the camp).
During the last week of camp, the entire camp was divided into two for this big color war thing. Gold vs. Blue. We had these “color war captains,” who were basically the counselors who the higher ups thought were worthy of leading their teams. I was not one of them (though I did win the counselor of the week award once).
So for the entire week, rather than gathering in rows according to your bunk at the beginning of the day, we would just chaotically separate into two giant blobs of blue and gold, each on one side of the flagpole down by the lake. I was on the Gold team so every morning for that last week, I stood in the general area of gold-team campers. It was a nice break from the seven weeks I had spent monitoring my bunk.
Then came this ONE DAY, where for some reason, the camp decided to switch the color captains. I have no idea why they did this (for the lols, I assume), but suddenly, the 5 (I think it was 5) Blue captains showed up at the morning assembly wearing gold (and vice versa), and they had prepared the appropriate speeches and cheers for their temporary new colors of allegiance.
So on that one morning, I was standing among the sea of gold campers with our temporarily new color war captains when the camp director made his morning announcements. Among them, he was talking about how the night supervision schedule would go for the last few days (it was getting moved around a bit because of the color wars and the fact that on the last night, we were all on night duty). What it basically boiled down to was that there was going to be one extra shift in the rotation and it was too bad for the one group who had to do the extra shift, but that couldn’t be helped.
We all waited with baited breaths, and when he finally announced that it was going to be my group, I let out a prolonged and audible sigh. I don’t know why I did that–it’s not as if I did anything with my nights off considering my dearth of friends–but the point is, I did. And I know it must have been a prolonged and audible sigh because the girl standing next to me–to one who normally would have been standing with the blue team, and was only standing next to me on that particular morning because it was color war captain switch day–laughed sympathetically and patted me on the shoulder.
…
So that’s the story. I’m not sure why it’s stayed with me for so long. Maybe it’s because this was a girl I had never spoken to the entire summer (though I suppose we both knew who the other one was because we both performed in the staff talent show) who on any other day that summer, would not have been standing next to me. And on the one occasion our paths crossed, however briefly, she chose to show a little sympathy when the opportunity presented itself. That, I think, makes it a story worth telling.
Too bad it’s been applicable in zero conversations I’ve had so far since it happened.
Tunnel Songs 