If I never went to Boy Scout Camp, I probably wouldn't have any stories for this site. Actually, that's a lie, but my stories would be far less interesting, that's for sure.
As you probably know from previous posts, I worked there in the summer of 2005 for two weeks and then for the full summer in 2006. Because I have the life I do, in 2005 I lived out in the boondocks away from everyone else. The camp is huge, and I was about a mile away from where everyone else lived, and I was the only cabin out there. The picture to the left gives a rough estimate of where I was, but unless you've been to Chawanakee you wouldn't understand the full magnitude of this.
Of course, as I said, because I have the life I do, I just happened to have really crazy roommates living with me. One roommate's name was Ray. Ray was seriously obsessed with coffee. I've never met someone so obsessed with any sort of food or drink in my entire life. He had a 24 ounce thermos that was ALWAYS filled with coffee. The medic (who, granted, did live right next to us, so I wasn't completely alone) was brewing coffee all the way up until midnight just for this guy. Every night. If he didn't have his coffee at every hour of every day, he was going to kill someone.
One day I walked back in the cabin, and Ray had a lighter next to my stuff. When I say he had a lighter, I don't mean he just tossed it aside and it was in my stuff, I mean he had it lit and was sitting there trying to set my stuff on fire. As soon as I walked in, he freaked out and looked at me like he was about to kill me for interrupting. Sorry, my bad I stopped for you from burning down all my crap. I had to walk all the way out to my cabin every time I was finished teaching a class just to make sure all my stuff was still there.
Ray wasn't even the worst of the two roommates I had, Jason was. Jason (I'm saying this as he actually was, I'm not just being mean) was mentally challenged. That wasn't why he was bad to live with, he just scared the crap out of me (not because he was mentally challenged, but I'm getting to that.)
One night Ray went out on the canoe outpost, which is pretty much when you canoe to the other side of the lake and you camp out over there. I never went, because every time I went canoeing I always managed to hit my hand on the side of the canoe and beat it to a bloody pulp.
While Ray was gone, I was obviously left alone with Jason. Being with the two of them together was bad enough, but being alone with either one of them was a nightmare.
Jason and I were walking back to our cabin, just kind of passing time and talking until we got there.
And now for why Jason will forever haunt my nightmares.
"Hey, just so you know, I got arrested for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon."
How? How the hell does this happen to me? What did I do to deserve such random, creepy, weird occurrances with other human beings?
This wasn't even the worst of it. Let me ask, what would you say in this situation? You probably don't know. Well, neither did I. So, I responded with, "Uh...please don't kill me...."
His response?
"Oh, don't worry. If I wanted to kill you I would have done it already."
And he's telling me this as we're a mile away from any civilization whatsoever, any help, any anything. So I had to go back to sleep with a deranged attempted murderer in the same room. He continued on with his story, of course, to explain to me how exactly he got arrested under these circumstances. Apparently once he was waiting for someone who pissed him off in a tree with a baseball bat. When the person finally came around, he jumped out of the tree and started beating him with the bat. Thus the assault with a deadly weapon. The attempted murder came from another person who apparently pissed him off, and he shot him with a BB gun.
I don't know. I don't know what I do to deserve such random stuff. Obviously, Jason never killed me, but I stick firm in saying no roommate will ever be as bad as that one.
The worst thing about all of this is unless you ever met Jason, you don't even know what he looked like. I hate to say this, but have you ever seen The Exorcist? Do you know what she looked like when she was possessed? There you go. He had no white in his eyes, they were constantly blood-red bloodshot, and his smile had no soul behind it. And people wonder why that movie freaks me out so much.
And watch. Now someone is randomly going to read this and they're just going to happen to know Jason and he's going to read this and hunt me down to kill me. Because that's just kind of the life I lead.
I really can't believe I actually added this picture. But it really is quite accurate.