Isn't it funny how some of the most powerful word combinations, the ones that instill the most intense emotions in our minds, come in pairs?

Jesus Christ.  Marry me?  I do.  Thank you. Large coffee. Summer camp.

Ah, sweet, sweet summer camp. Summer camp is a tradition that most families in America pass down from generation to generation.  In some families, going to the same summer camp is held to equal importance as getting married in the same church Mom and Dad did or someday inheriting the house that Grandpa built with his own two hands.  And why shouldn't it be?  Summer camp has all of the possibilities to be one of the best experiences of your life: cabins, s'mores, campfires, stories, inside jokes, the opportunity to meet new people and all of this in the great outdoors.  There's even something sacred about coming together as campers to face pests like mosquitos and inconveniences like shoddy indoor plumbing.  Summer camp has the POSSIBILITY to be the hub for some of your most precious childhood memories.  Possibility.  Unfortunately, somewhere between writing your name in twelve pairs of underwear so that they don't get mixed up in the community camp laundry and saying goodbye to Camp Wannahakalugi, that possibility is sometimes missed entirely.

In the beginning, there was camp. And Mom or Dad said 'Let's go'. 

Maybe you greeted the prospect with this attitude....

Or maybe this one...

But wether it was bribery or Benadryl slipped into your pancakes at breakfast that allowed your parents to stuff you and a months-worth of clothes into the SUV and haul you out to a remote campground with the rest of the kids that fell somewhere along the spectrum from "Camp is love. Camp is life." to "Bringing stationary so I can write Mom and Dad telling them that they're conducting medical experiments on me and to come get me early.", you arrived.  And something innately innocent and hopeful in you spoke up and said maybe, just maybe you'll have a good time. It's camp.  Maybe it will be as amazing as the Girl Scouts that sell me boxes of cookies at Safeway make it out to be. (Though you never see them selling any Tag-Alongs or Samoas out in the woods now do you? Interesting.)

On cue, that hopeful voice fills your head with images of what the next month of your life in this rural sanctuary of cabins and campfires and activities could look like...

When reality was more like...

Ok. So maybe that's an extreme reaction.  But unfortunately, in my experience, the truth about summer camp is that people have one of two impressions: 'It was even better than Lindsey Lohan could have ever made me believe. I made a million friends and we're all going to be pen palls. BFFLs. Like. Literally.' or 'I spent the month in the infirmary faking swine flu because I couldn't take one more day of "group fun time".'.  

Now, I know how hard people work at these summer camps. I've been a poor soul commonly known as a counselor.  I know that the people organizing these treasured family traditions devote clock-breaking amounts of time to ensure, to the best of their abilities, that children have fun god damnit.  

The problem is that they are so focused on making sure that the campers have enough fun to validate their decision to devote their entire summer to planning team-building activities, that they sometimes make having fun more like having lung cancer: grueling and torturous.  And maybe it's because they're sleep deprived because they were busy trying to fit arts and crafts and swimming and basketball and karaoke into a 30 minute block period left open for 'free time' every day.  Maybe it's because kids just don't give a shit about broadening their social horizons that brings the mood down.  Personally, I am a firm believer that it's the activities that are chosen that are truly at fault.  How much closer to soul sucking-ly patronizing can you get when you're already filling a cup with water on one side of the room with one spoon and a bucket of water on the other side of the room and you're passing said spoon off relay style? Oh, and if you don't cheer your teammates on, you lose 'passion points' recorded by the girl at the front who is WAY too into 'encouraging' the team she's not even on. 

You know this girl.  The one who owns a shirt that says "Eat. Sleep. Camp. Repeat." and has a lanyard from each one of the past thirteen years she's attended camp and volunteers first for every social mixer during her one month of absolute, peppy sun-tanned bliss.  Maybe she's the one to blame for some people feeling like camp more closely resembles Dante's inferno than a joyful tradition of old.  Some people simply don't share that pink, sparkly strand of Care Bear DNA.  Some people would rather chop off their arm than undergo the humiliation of participating in an ocean-themed skit where they must paint their bodies orange and play the part of Nemo because they are the smallest one in the group.

Don't get me wrong, I hope that most kids make a new best friend and they love every minute of scavenger hunts where the only prize is 'pride in your team' and they cry when they leave camp every year and during the school year, look back on the Polaroids they took (yes, retro is hip now apparently) and yearn for it to be June again.  

But I want you to look into your heart of hearts and ask yourself this question: 

How trustworthy are those girl scouts that claim the importance of camping? Just how much do you think Savannah would Smile if she was in the middle of nowhere with a mandatory water balloon toss on the horizon instead of her very own shower to go home to that night?