After
summer camp that year we went down with a youth group with my parents
to camp at lake Powell for a week. The trip was for kids sixteen and
older but my siblings and I got to go because our parents were some
of the leaders in charge. We were miserable little brats and our
presence was not entirely welcomed by the other, older kids. We were
generally tolerated while my mom or dad was around but as soon as
they were gone we would start sassing off and then we would be yelled
at or abused. The ones that would get the most mad were the young men
who were trying to be cool to impress the girls and we were ruining
it. We went to jump off some cliffs and some of the boys were doing
trick jumps to show off and we were pointing out that they were
showing off so they tried to throw me off the cliff. I jumped and
ruined their little plan, ha ha. One night when we were coming in
from boating a boy slipped trying to get off the boat and he fell
part way into the water and exclaimed that the water was wet. My
brother and I seized on this and started pointing out the nature or
all sorts of things around camp. We mentioned that the fire was
firey. The Sand was sandy. The Air was Airy. The kid told us to stop
but it was too fun by now so we kept right on analyzing the intrinsic
adjectival potential of all and sundry about camp. The wind was windy
and the dirt was dirty and the boy had lost patience. He and a friend
chased me down and grabbed me by my hands and feet, counted three,
and hurled me into the lake. When I came up I wiped the water from my
face and yelled back that they were right the water was really wet.
They thought it was funny how I was able to bookend the joke and so
they laughed and all was forgiven. Nah, they threw rocks at me and
threatened to throw me back in if I came back to the campfire that
night. I didn't so they didn't and I dropped the joke after that.
