Blue Ridge Country - May/June 2017 - 13

I was heartbroken. This was like camping in your
own backyard. This was no life-changing adventure.
How was I supposed to test my mettle at Olansky's
pond? Being a Girl Scout to my bones though, I vowed
that I'd make it the best adventure that I could.
First thing I did after pitching my pup tent was go
off to dig a latrine. I was sure it would be appreciated by
the group. Nope. Seemed like these girls just wanted to
tinkle anywhere and everywhere, no organized sanitation at all. I was hurt that my beautifully dug latrine was
just pearls before free-piddling swine.
Then came dinner time. I had the tools, I had the
know-how, I had hot dogs. I was ready to shine again,
and this time I got my opportunity. We all had to bring
our own dinner fixings and after some help getting a big
fire going, we had to cook our own meal.
Fun Fact 1: Everyone else chose to bring hamburger
for dinner.
Fun Fact 2: My little six-inch aluminum skillet was
the only frying pan because no one else, not even the
chaperones, remembered one.
Fun Fact 3: I became the most popular Girl Scout on
the planet as a result of my preparedness.
Nothing makes a prepared person more smug than
having unprepared people beg to use your supplies. I leisurely cooked and ate my hot dogs and then spent the
rest of the evening watching my troop devolve into an
amateur production of Animal Farm. By the time everyone had finally eaten dinner, no one was in the mood
for s'mores, a snipe hunt, or Kumbaya. It was late, it was
dark, and headlights were bouncing our way. What dangerous interloper is this? I put my hand on my hatchet,
just in case.
It was Daddy. Suited up in his state trooper uniform,
he planned to spend the night watching over us. I was
shattered. How was I supposed to develop survival skills
with my own daddy parked 10 yards away? This is not
what I wanted at all. Worse, bed time was being called.
Only two of us had tents. Most of the girls had sleeping
bags or blankets. I settled in, muttering.
In a couple of hours, our expedition took a turn for
the worse. It started raining, hard. The Girl Scouts without tents ran for cars and the two tents. Vivie Tate stuck
her head in my tent, pleading to be let in.
Vivie was an interesting girl, holding the record for
having her stomach pumped more than any student in
our school. Easy, since she'd had her stomach pumped
five times and the rest of us refrained from eating everything like a Labrador retriever. Vivie would later go
on to immense popularity by developing the biggest
bazooms our high school had ever seen outside of the
livestock barn, but in the rain she was but 10 years old,
flat-chested, and sopping wet. I let her in. Mistake.
I don't know if this is still the case with tents, having
eschewed camping shortly after this outing, but if you

MILL CREEK STORIES

The Girl Scout Promise
On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my country,
To help people at all times,
And to live by the Girl Scout Law.
The Girl Scout Law
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.*
(*except Vivie Tate)

touched the fabric while it was raining the tent would
start to leak. Vivie rubbed entire swathes of tent fabric
into weeping while settling in, then complained about
the dripping. Really?
Next, Vivie worked herself into a frenzy thinking a
cricket was in the tent. I told her crickets were lucky, but
I do not sleep with my mouth open and Vivie did. She
was terrified that the cricket was going to crawl into her
open maw while she slept. Wouldn't shut up about it.
That's when I put my hand on my hatchet, just in case.
Mrs. Wembley came by before Vivie's demise, and
told us that we were breaking camp. The weather was
too nasty. Time to go. I kicked Vivie out, packed up, and
got in the squad car to head home.
Girl Scout camping was not at all what I had dreamed
it to be. If it had not been for my skillet superiority, it
would've been a total bust. But it wasn't. I had a moment when I was the smartest, best-prepared Girl Scout
who ever pitched a tent and that was good enough. In
fact, it was awesome. 
May/June 2017 13

Blue Ridge Country - May/June 2017

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