Friday, August 19, 2005

Today, I was bodily chucked into an unpleasantly chilly swimming pool four times. Three of those times were by the same guy who kept coming up behind me while I was talking to one of the kids/staff and just kinda shoving me. It was really pissy, especially since I have this thing about swimming while on my period. As in I really don't like doing it. I've had really negative experiences. (Which did not repeat themselves today...!) Anyway, after being thrown in the pool each time, I would hastily climb out and sit on the edge. Then, I would get up and walk around, making sure the children were behaving and such. Basically, bullshitting my way through the day's "work". (I don't feel guilty about doing nothing useful the whole time, however, because I didn't get a break today. Or yesterday. Bastards.) Actually, truth be told, doing this was kind of silly and pointless, as every one knows the job of a volunteer at a summer camp is not to take care of the kids, but to complete menial, irksome tasks no one else wants to do. And to get people food. And basically emulate Marten.[/QC reference] At least, if we had an office, it would be. ("Classroom bitch" doesn't sound all that great or virtuous.) I swear, half of my time is spent feeding this one woman, who cannot move to fetch her own bananas/hamburger/corn flakes/whatever the fuck else. I spent ten minutes finding her a shit-ass banana the other day, because some retard had left three bushels of bananas in the medication fridge. I was chided for not looking in there, of course. After all, who wouldn't leave three bushels of bananas in the medication fridge? No one with any sense of order or reason, certainly. (Disclaimer: She's a nice person, aside from the whole food thing, so I don't mind as much as I could. It's still damn annoying, though.) To get back on track, however, bastard kept shoving me into the damn pool and he's too damn heavy for me to shove into the pool, as a means of revenge. We're not going swimming again, either, so I can't, like, recruit a bunch of impressionable six year olds to get the job done, either. After leaving the pool, we headed over to another summer camp, so the children could attend a dance. A dance. A summer camp dance. It was priceless[ly boring]. Sure, the music was a bunch of Much crap I couldn't listen to without cringing, and all my favourite kids were bored out of their minds, and I had to clean up spilled juice and some bitchy girl from another camp almost knocked juice all over my favourite t-shirt and didn't apologise, but aside from that all, it was priceless. Watching six- to ten-year olds "break-dance" is just one of those things that pushes the boundaries of the hysterical. I know Sarah knows all about it (I remember that conversation, even if you dont. xD). Actually, make that six year olds. I hate children between the ages of seven and fourteen. I really do. They just suck to be around. They're not cute any more and they haven't learned they can't do anything and that being gross/obnoxious/abrasively stupid is not endearing in the least. Some will go on to think this way for the duration of their lives. It's pitiful. One of the six year olds spilled a cup full of the orange juice they handed out to all the kids all over the floor, making an orangey puddle. Half-defeated already, by this point, I sighed and ambled towards the kitchen, and asked for some paper towels, explaining one of our kids had spilled his orange juice. Motherfucker hands me one god damn paper towel. I give him this look of utter disgust and his boss (my boss' brother, incidentally) says to him, "What the hell is she going to do with one paper towel?" It was a very rewarding seven seconds. I'll tell you that. The kid was a dear and helped clean up, to the best of his ability. There's a sticky spot on the gym of that school, however, because we didn't get all of it, since there was a paper towel shortage. Right now, I simply love ignoring other people's problems completely, even if it was kinda my responsibility to solve them. Kinda. Almost. Maybe if they gave me a fucking break once in a while. 'Cause right now I am so very, very bitter, it's not even funny. Anyway, they eventually played "Backstreet's Back", just because. I mean...you gotta play "Backstreet's Back" eventually, right? I was being bemused when I noticed the kids had stopped singing. I wondered if it was because they had better taste than most kids or what, but then I realised something... They didn't know the words. I am way to young to be old, dammit! All the while, it had been either raining or about to rain. It poured for the two minutes it took me to walk to the center in the morning. (The sky hates me, evidently. And also S___, who was soaked biking there. And C_____, who missed a soccer game because of the rain. D=) When it came time to leave the other summer camp, it was raining and winding and lightning and thundering so intensely, it would have been in violation of our...stuff we're allowed to expose the children to to take them outside, to walk the ten meters to the bus. I shit you not. Not that the rule-enforcers are that anal, but that it was that stormy. The roads were flooded. The puddle at the bottom of our ravine is flowing. Tons of manholes burst. A big, old willow tree in our ravine snapped at the middle and destroyed a section of our fence. My mom forgot her keys and showed up at the center to get mine. It was really lame. Me: What the hell are you doing here? O_o Mom: I forgot my keys. I came to get yours. Me: I leave in five minutes! Couldn't you wait that long?? Seriously, what the hell? Jeez. I took three steps out in the rain and, damn it, K_____ might as well have tossed me in the pool a fourth time. Just when I was so wet I couldn't get any wetter, my friend's dad showed up and gave us a ride home. : D Yay~!~!! The funny thing was, while I was standing in the gym at that other summer camp, and there were little kids running all over the place, and music was playing, and the doors leading to outside were open and it was just starting to storm violently, and I was standing there, I felt like no other planet could ever make sense of us, ever. It was pretty bizarre, actually. Creeped me out. And you know what? I didn't get a fucking break.

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