When I was young, my family would often go camping in northeast Utah, near Flaming Gorge Reservoir. After busy days of fishing, hiking, touring, etc., we’d settle down with a fire-grilled meal and listen to the radio. In the daytime, we couldn’t get any radio reception, but at night we could get AM radio from hundreds of miles away. We either listened to CBS Radio Mystery Theatre or classical music.

One evening, as we were listening to music, the overture from “The Barber Of Seville” came on. Almost immediately, I started humming and whistling to the music. My mother was astonished.

Mom: “[My Name], how do you know this music?”

Me: “It’s the music in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”

CONTENT WARNING: Vomit

In the late 1970s, I went to Girl Scout camp. It was great! But one night, they served boiled spinach, and as fate would have it, I’d been playing with pond moss that very afternoon. Add to this the fact that I’d tried spinach once at a friend’s house and I threw up. (Mom despised spinach, so it hadn’t crossed my plate any other time.)

At dinner that night, our vegetable was boiled spinach. I told the counselors:

Me: “I can’t eat this; I’ll throw up.”

Counselor #1: “If you don’t take at least three ‘Brownie bites’, you can’t have dessert.”

Me #2: “What is dessert?”

Counselor: “Ice cream sandwiches.”

D***. Game on.

Me: “Okay, I want that. I’m going to take a bite and puke… Should I aim for the railing?”

It was semi-outdoors.

The counselors had stopped caring.

Counselor #1: “Uh-huh. Sounds good.”

I took the bite, swallowed it, and promptly puked over the railing. Suddenly, they were all action and rushed me to the one-stall bathroom… which was occupied.

I puked in the sink until the vile green s*** was out of my system.

As I wiped my mouth with the paper towel, I said:

Me: “So, do I need to take my other two bites?”

Several counselors asked me shortly thereafter:

Counselors: “If you knew you were going to throw up, why did you eat it?”

Me: “I love ice cream sandwiches.”

My sweet mother raised Hell upon my return from camp that summer, and the forced “three bite” rule went away at that camp for many, many years.

In 1993, we had a Scout camp next to a lake (Lake Bullaren, for the reference of other possible inhabitants of the Swedish West Coast). When we were collecting the last bits and bobs, we asked one of the assistant scoutmasters to pick up “everything loose”.

When we got back to town (Göteborg), we found that he’d picked up the life buoy that belonged to the safety equipment at the lake.

It was a very long drive back!

I’m from the UK, and I worked at a kid’s summer camp in America in the late 1990s.

It’s at the end of camp, and the parents are picking up their kids. One of the kids is complaining to her parents.

Kid: “The food here has been horrible!”

The parents look at me for confirmation.

Me: “I’m afraid that’s true. Due to some logistical issues, nothing was able to be cooked fresh; it was all just reheated in a microwave.”

Parent: “Oh, I bet that was exciting for you, though; I guess you had never seen a microwave before!”

I work at a fairly basic campsite. We just provide a big field with a few basic toilet/shower facilities and a small store near the entrance.

An unscheduled car has pulled up, and the driver is asking me about how much it is to rent a spot for the weekend. I tell him our price.

Tourist: “So affordable! There are four of us: me and the wife and our two kids. When can you have the tent up?”

Me: “What tent?”

Tourist: “We need you to build us our tent. For camping! Not much camping without a tent!”

Me: “We don’t provide a tent building service, sir. You do that yourself.”

Tourist: “Wait, you mean I have to build my own tent?!”

Me: “Uh… yes? We only provide the campsite and some basic toiletry facilities.”

Tourist: “Ugh… fine. Where do I get them?”

Me: “Get the what?”

Tourist: “The tents? Do you, like, bring them to me when I pick a spot, or…?”

Me: “Sir, you… bring the tents with you. You bring everything with you. All we supply are toilets and showers. We have a basic supply shop near the entrance that sells things like bug spray and some snacks, but we don’t provide tents.”

Tourist: “Wait… bug spray? You mean there are bugs out here?”

Me: “I think maybe camping isn’t for you, sir…”