Pranks and summercamp, a classic combo

"So, at what point did you think going up to the third floor and putting lotion on all the door handles and then tying all of them together with string was a good idea?" My boss was a skeptical fellow, at best. It was one of the last weeks of camp, and as I sat in his office for the umpteenth time, I thought of how good some real food would taste compared to the cafeteria crap I ate on a daily basis.

Yes, indeed I had done the aforementioned things. In fact, I'd done a little bit more, both inadvertently and advertently. The first floor of Marshall hall had been attacked by my motley crew of kids as well, a little known fact that I decided wasn't worth mentioning at the time. (My kids and I lived on the second floor, for those of you who are keeping tabs)

It was genius, in a sort of "summer camp only happens once a year" kind of genius. My kids and I had been plotting since the first day, gathering scraps of ideas, planning out exactly what needed to happen. It was on a bright Sunday afternoon that we gathered shampoo, sunscreen, string, and various other supplies, made sure that both first and third floor halls were vacant, set our lookouts, and got to work. I started at one end of the hall, tying one door to a door across the hall, then another across from that, then across from that, and so on till every door was tied together. Walking down the hall became a hassle unless you were a limbo master. While I was working on that, a few of my kids had gotten the idea to put packets of red Crystal Lite in all the toilets, an act which I didn't fully understand but figured to just go along with anyway. We also managed to rub shampoo and sunscreen on all the door handles as well, a little afterthought to add to the confusion.

Then, once we'd completed our work on both floors, I finished it off with a nice little touch of brilliance, fresh of the chopping block of my agile mind. I had one of my kids write on a piece of paper 'Courtesy of Demon Hunters (aka First Floor Marshall)' and we taped it to the strings on the third floor. We went down to the first floor and did something similar, blaming the third floor for the utter destruction.

As I sat in my boss' office, I tried to explain to him just how harmless everything had been. Well, everything that he knew about, anyways. The main secret of how everything had led to an all-out battle between third and first floor was still kept safely tucked away, never to be revealed to management.

"Battle?" you ask, a hint of sarcasm in your voice.

Yeah, that's right, you heard me: battle. At one point I saw a kid running through our hall, a large microwave in his clutches.

You see, when third floor returned to the devastation, conclusions were immediately drawn, exactly as I had planned. They found the group from first floor outside, and a mini-brawl began. An RA was tackled as third floor charged, their life-size pizza box unicorn mascot in tow. Tempers flared on both sides as the situation quickly got out of hand. Unfortunately, I only heard later on in the day about the chaos I had helped create, so my ability to go into further detail about the battle is hampered. Either way, it was a disaster.

Needless to say, the fact that it happened was kept under raps from our superiors for the rest of camp. The RAs got together the following morning and decided that all grievances were dropped against each offending hall. Everyone knew that the pranks had been perpetrated by my group, but they were nice enough to never get us back, as it was clear that some of the things that had happened in the scuffle between third and first floors was further beyond the limits of reason than anything I had done.

I walked away from that meeting in my boss' office, wondering how much trouble I and the other RAs had narrowly escaped, and whether camp would end before the rumor of the battle would light upon enemy (i.e. management's) ears.

Thankfully, word never got out. The kids kept it amongst themselves, possibly not recognizing the extent to which things had gotten out of hand. I joked with a few of the RAs involved about it, and stories of the battle were told amongst ourselves when no one else was around to hear, firsthand accounts of the true rage that had been evident on certain kids' faces, even tears that had been shed.

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In other news, last night I was trying to close a pocket knife and I dropped it on the ground. It landed, point down, and inch away from my foot. Kinda reminded me of this story, in a way.