Unfiltered Story #262272

My church has been hosting a day camp for about 30 years. I attended it when I was younger as did many of the current counselors. All youth events at the church rely on volunteers, from Sunday school to day camp. In the area that I live you need to log at least 40 volunteer hours or you can’t graduate high school. So logically, all teenagers at our church volunteer as Sunday school teachers or day camp counselors. One week of day camp gets you a little over 40 hours, but many of us volunteer for six weeks every year. I however, do not. I am a Sunday school teacher every three months for a month and help at the local fairground. I agreed to help in the kitchen this week preparing snacks for the campers and was doing such when my friend’s older brother ran in on the second day and asked me to be a counselor. I had no good excuse not to, and he sounded desperate, so I agreed. He filled me in on the rules for the bathroom (so nobody thinks we are pedophiles), handed me a shirt and put me with the youngest green group. These children are 4-6 and need to be supervised at all times. I recognize the other leader, and it all goes smoothly for a while. Unfortunately green is right next to yellow. Yellow is the same age group and has this set of twins that will be referred to as ProblemYellow1 and ProblemYellow2. I know the yellow leader, so I hear all the details from her. ProblemYellow1 has bladder issues and if he holds it for too long, he could get really sick. ProblemYellow2 always wants to go the bathroom with his brother and they always make a mess. Tuesday was fine, they started a couple of fistfights, but were otherwise fine. Mind you, I’m incredibly inexperienced and was expected to help break up fights as I was the closest leader. Wednesday comes around and they take eleven cookies each (maximum of two) and are incredibly hyper all day. Around lunch time they get in a splash fight in the bathroom. As me and the yellow leader are both females, we cannot enter the bathroom so we go and get my friend and another leader. They break it up and we think it’s over. Later the problem children in Purple admit to flushing a toy down the toilet (important later) and the ProblemYellows get in another splash fight. The custodian is pissed, rightly so. Another kid peed his pants and the custodian has been really busy. Today, the substitute director put ProblemYellow1 in red hoping to stop problems. Nope! They meet up at snack time in the bathroom. The toilet from before is clogged and the director has ordered us to stay out. Unfortunately for us, ProblemYellow1 (now red) has to use the bathroom so we tell him to leave the clogged toilet alone. He sneaks his brother in and they continue to flush the toilet until the water is flowing out the door, 14 feet away. They then proceeded to run (rather unsucsfully) away. Their mother is a single parent struggling to raise two kids and work a job, and as we are a Christian camp, we teach forgiveness by setting an example of ourselves. They are coming back tomorrow for the last day of camp, and I’m not sure I want to come back. But we are short on volunteers, and if you log 200 hours in our area, you are eligible for a college scholarship, I will return. Sigh. I’m almost afraid to see if I got the job I applied for if this is what customer service is like.