I Eat Up Counselors Like You For Lunch

(I often go to a day camp in the summer. I am a very thin child. When my parents pack me a lunch for the day, I typically get a sandwich, a snack — usually strawberries or grapes — and money for either one or two drinks. All of these things, from the plastic baggies holding each item to the brown paper bag they were stored in, have my full name on them. One of the female counselors sees me stashing the remaining half of my sandwich.)

Counselor: “[My Name]! Don’t waste food!”

Me: “I’m not.”

Counselor: “I saw you throw that sandwich away!”

Me: “It’s in my backpack. I’m full now. I’ll eat it later.”

Counselor: “You’re just going to throw it in the trash!”

(She grabs my bag, rips it open, pulls outs the brown paper bag with my lunch, drops the plastic baggie with my sandwich in her hand, shreds the plastic, and hovers it over my mouth.)

Counselor: “EAT!”

Me: “I’m not hungry!”

(This loops a few times, and the other counselor is just as useless. With no one in my corner, I get worn down and start eating the sandwich. Surprise, surprise, “I’m full,” means, “Don’t put any more food in my belly right now or I’ll vomit!” The good news is I don’t see her for the rest of the day as she is too horrified by what I’ve done to her sneakers. The bad news is what she says as she leaves.)

Counselor: “Don’t let him do anything for the rest of the day! He made himself vomit just to be a jerk!”

(The following day, come lunch time, before I even have a chance to put the bag down and open my soda, she’s already on me and takes my lunch out of my hand. She tosses my sandwich onto my lap and then holds up my grapes.)

Counselor: “You can have the grapes back when the sandwich is gone!”

(Remember when I mentioned my brain always tells me “Stop eating!” in this circumstance? Yeah, that happens again here. So for the rest of the week, I don’t get my snack. At all. During the first activity after lunch each day, starting today, I get to see her pull my snack out of her bag and hear the same line.)

Counselor: “Since you didn’t want these at lunch, they’re my snack now.”

(I figure I need to talk to the director of the camp about this, but I am not allowed to directly approach him, so I devise a plan. After yet another day of this counselor’s lunch ritual, just as I start racking my brain for ideas, I see an odd bulge from the tree not too far from the lunch area that wasn’t there when I started camp this year. I go to examine it, and I notice it’s a hive. We have some fresh wasps! By itself, the hive isn’t a problem. At a lunch area, with sugary sodas lying all over, now we have some intruders. A splash of soda here, a few little cream filling there, and they are all over my area.)

Me: “OH, MY GOD!”

(I bolt from the table, my lunch in hand.)

Counselor: “It’s not going to hurt you! Go eat!”

Me: “NO! I’M ALLERGIC!”

(I’m not really.)

Counselor: *mumbling* “You big baby.”

(She takes me by the hand into the visitor’s center and directly into the director’s office.)

Counselor: “[Director], we have a nest of wasps near the lunch area. [My Full Name] is claiming he’s allergic to wasps. Could you pull his allergy warnings and get someone to clear the nest?”

(One scan of the cabinet later…)

Director: “Nothing about wasps. [My Name], are you sure you’re allergic?”

Me: “No, I just needed to talk to you, and this was the only way [Counselor] would let me do it.”

Director: “Oh?”

Me: “She’s been stealing parts of my lunch every day since I started here this year.”

Director: “Excuse me?”

Counselor: “He’s full of it! I’ve never even touched his food!”

Me: “Then empty your bag.”

Counselor: “NO! Why should I?”

Director: “Because I’m your boss and I told you to.”

(Amazingly, it never crossed her mind to take my snack out of the plastic baggie with my overtly male and distinctly not-hers name on it.)

Director: “[Counselor], wait here until I get back. [My Name], get your grapes and I’ll walk you back to lunch.”

(The following day, my group had two new counselors.)