I am deliciously delirious. Why I thought agreeing to be the editor of a careers section for my friends finance website when I knew I’d be in America for the deadline was a good idea, I’ll never know. (I’ll also never know why I’m writing for a finance website since the only finance I’m concerned with is payday and the 0800 number for Natwest’s overdraft service). However, 11,062 words later, it is done and I am smug with knowing that I am a multi-tasking harridan. Yet, combined with rigorous swing pushing trials and laborious hot glue gunning of broken shoes, I am officially off my face on sleep deprivation. A few minutes ago my fellow counsellor Anthony just told me he couldn’t deal with me as he’d spent all day putting up with kids and on his break he needed some solace. I was close to arguing back until I glimpsed Austin, one of the camp chefs, K.Oed on the couch bearing a tattoo of ‘I ♥ CUPCAKES BADLY’ in bright pink sharpie and thought ‘he’s got a point there’.
I did manage to sensible up enough to get some details about the accommodation in which we’re staying at next weekend which is officially booked meaning I am OFFICIALLY going to New York, New York! At last, I don’t have to feel the need to correct people that I’m not living in a penthouse suite for the summer but in a creaky wooden cabin! Of course, I’m actually staying in a hostel in Brooklyn but that’s a step up, right?
But enough about next weekend, I’ve still got a bloody week left with the kids!! It’s not that I don’t like it anymore; it’s just that BY GUM children are hard work. When I go home I’m going to give the ol’ Don and Jon Dick Team a high five and a 24oz bag of skittles and say ‘Oh beautiful parents, you deserve this hoard of artificial colours and general sweet pestilence, you brave, noble folk you’. My latest method in getting my campers attention is to break down on the floor crying whilst wailing ‘why don’t you looooveee me anymoooooreeeee?’ So far it’s proving quite effective but then I’m getting smothered by 8 girls and thinking ‘MAYDAY! MAYDAY! I’VE GOT AN ABUDANE OF SWEATY CHILDREN TRYING TO CONSOLE ME!’
The hardest thing is when they don’t listen. Combined with their incredible ability to find a reason to go to the nurse for anything (‘I’ve got a headache’/‘My stomach hurts’/‘I’ve got a leaf stuck in my nostril’), I find it hard to not roll my eyes and tell them to stop being lame and ‘man up’. Desperate for a break, I found myself taking a girl to the infirmary late the other night for headache tablets to only find out that she was pining for Tylenol at breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day too. I’m not sure if the new scheme for socialised healthcare includes painkiller addiction but if so, I’m signing this girl up pronto.
However, I shall not dwell on the negatives. One absolutely wonderful thing about being in America and looking after kids are the names. Ohhhh the names. I could do a terrific parody of Mambo No. 5 with the array of exotic names we’ve got here: (Tamazzia, Ashanti, Shatoya) but my absolute favourite is a boy named Angel. Now this may not seem that incredibly diverse at first, but wait until you hear this: Angel’s brother is called Damien. Bloody hell.
Another precious moment was the dance on the basketball courts last night. Considering we’ve been warned to have no relationships with our fellow counsellors and to keep our eyes on the older boys and girls, they could not have picked a more inappropriate bunch of songs. It’s funny how you glaze over lyrics but when a 9 year old girl is belting out the words ‘I’m gonna get you crunk, crunk. Boys gonna touch my junk, junk’ that you think ‘ah, so this isn’t a song about a barn dance and cheese and pineapple on sticks’. However, this isn’t the worst of it- we haven’t even got to the dance moves yet. Some of them were good, some of them were really good (a ten year old boy and girl were having a dance battle in the middle of the playground which was quite frankly youtube quality), but some of them were just absolutely eye-poppingly terrifying. I felt like yelping and covering up my own eyes, never mind my 12 year old campers. If I had thrown out moves like that I would definitely and absolutely be fired within seconds. Geeze.
Before I slump off into a mad pit of rampant idiocy, I’ll update you on the latest details:
Kids say the funniest things
Whilst trying to tell off a girl for hitting her sister with her flip flops, the sister replies: ‘I love getting hit by flip flops’. Thanks kid.
Counsellors say the funniest things
Whilst discussing our most prized possessions, Sandro confesses ‘my most prized possession is my Mom because she’s the one that popped me out’.
Head. Image. Mind cringe.
British words and phrases that Americans find funny
Dodgy, minging, grim, bin, skip and torch.
I also found out today that if you call a particularly mucky girl a ‘skank’, it does not mean she’s dirty, it means she’s a prostitute.
American words and phrases that I’ve found hilarious
‘You’re right, it is quite frigid out this morning’
‘In Britain you wear fanny packs all the time, don’t you?’ I should bloody hope not.
Total bug bites to date
21
Bish bash bosh.
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