Yes, you too.
Look at yourself. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Do you think you were made to sit behind a computer all day? Perfecting your recipe for Hollandaise sauce? Or on the couch ripping bong hits? (only on days that end in Y, am I right Doughboy?) No. You are born to do stupid stuff. Or at least that’s what just hit me this am. Nestle down. Get comfy. It’s CE story time:
Did you know that I worked at a camp in Colorado in the summer of ’91? Young Life Work Crew. Outdoor Crew to be specific. When I signed up I was told that I’d stuff like blow leaves, catch butterflies, and mow a small grassy patch, etc. You know, grunt work. In fact, that’s what the outdoor crew called ourselves: The Grunts. I can’t remember everyone’s name but there was me. They just called me Hickory. There was Shaggy (from MN), Brian from Chicago, Ruben (Texas), Pablo (Texas), and Deputy Dog (MN). Our daily duties did include mowing and blowing leaves, but we also had a duty that was necessary only after a big meal which was about 2x per week. We had to skim the cess pool. Yep, Old Man Clyde gave us yellow palmolive gloves, pool skimmers and told us to have fun. Cess Pool? Am I reading that right CEd? Yes, this was straight raw sewage from all of the camp’s shitters. Anything that floated, we had to skim off the top. Here’s a sample of floating objects: tampons, tampon wrappers, maxipads, maxipad peelings, bubble gum, peanuts, corn…but mainly small terds. Human frickin’ terds. The smell of that pool was ungodly. We tried stuffing toilet paper up our noses. It didn’t help, you could not escape it. And here’s the worse part: we had to get in a row boat to get some of the terds off of a dividing wall that separated one pond from another. You’re familiar with 2 Girls, one cup? This was 2 dudes/one boat/one bucket. One dude paddled and the other scooped. It was nuts (pun). You’ve never seen 2 dudes move more carefully and deliberately in a boat in your life. Clyde told us about the time he fell in….I think Shaggy puked after hearing that. Proof is below in the pictures. I wouldn’t believe it either. And here’s another twist, we were all volunteer workers. For free. Just having a fun time in Colorado. Did Young Life know that we would have to go down there and skim terds? Yep. Did they include that in the job description? Hell no. Or to steal a quote from Airplane! – Momma didn’t raise no dummy. They knew exactly what they were doing by not telling anyone. In fact, how would you describe that in the job description?
Paddling skills required for navigating the SS Shitboat through the brackish waters of Terd Pond every morning after the camp is fed corn. Must have low to zero gag reflex and can lift 55 gallon trash bag of terds to bury later that day.
And that gets me part of the way to my point. The work was horrible. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was illegal. Or at the very least, really stupid to ask a 16 year old to float over some shit for a few hours. But man, we laughed about it. We thought we were the coolest dudes at that camp. Who’s crazy enough to do THAT? Only the Grunts. We had a blast. It’s been 29 years since I’ve seen any of the Grunts, but I promise you that as soon as I do see one of them the first thing we’d talk about is going White Bass/Water Whistle fishing (that’s what we called it….obviously, why else would I mention that?). We were CSAUP’n before we knew what CSAUP was.
Same with joining a fraternity. Sorta. There’s no need to discuss everything that happened for the 4 years I lived at 100 S Fraternity Court except this: I chose to live there for 4 years because I knew that there would never be another time in my life to experience the Sock of Death at 3:00am, light someone’s shirt on fire – while still on a dude, throw a dead raccoon in the Pika house, or have a cubbie mate that had a propensity to piss himself after 6 beers or more to name a few. It was CSAUP. Also, just in case Mommer is reading: we studied a lot too.
Now with modern day CSAUP, it’s similar just less poo. Unless Pumpernickle is included. When folk are looking for an HC for a relay no one says Yeah man, it’s tons of fun you might die on your first leg while the race volunteers laugh at your corpse. Or oh yeah they’re great, where else can you spend 30+ hours with dudes that smell like that dead raccoon that you threw in the Pika house in ’95? Race promo videos don’t include all the misery of the 50K, they just show a slightly dirty dude galloping along a trail with butterflies and bluebirds on his shoulder. All chuckles and grins. They leave off the F Bombs and the 100 times you’ll trip on a root. If they did, no one would sign up. Cept maybe our In House Goats like Markup, SP, Squints or HBC.
It’s about blind faith. Trusting in someone that you’ll get better if you so a CSAUP. Or at the very least you’ll have fun while you do it. You’ll have stories for life and share a common bond with those you did it with. No one remembers the bong rips on the couch, but you remember the stupid crap you did after the bong rips…ok, bad analogy but you get the point right? Doing stupid is part of what F3 is about. Chicks dig scars. Get off the couch and do stupid, stupid.
Note:
- a dude from Wisconsin already thinks that a dude from NC is a hillbilly. Tell him you’re from HICK-ory and it immediately reinforces their stereotypes about you.
- if you’re not familiar with 2 Girls/1 Cup; DO NOT GOOGLE IT. Ever.
- at YL Camp it got to the point where when we saw corn at the dinner table, we knew we were headed to Terd Pond the next morning.
- It was not a good feeling to try and eat something that you knew you’d be scooping mounds of that exited from someone else’s poop chute a few hours ago.
- Now you know why they can sometimes be called Cornholes.
- We would fill up trash bags of that crap (pun) and drive it to an undisclosed location and bury it. No doubt that that is highly illegal.
- Pictures won’t load, so I’ll have to share them separately.
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