It’s been almost a year, yet I still can’t quite forget the odor that permeated the car as we drove my son home from camp last year. He’d been away for almost four weeks, and though the day was pleasant up in the Hudson Valley, he requested air conditioning in the car. We obliged and closed the windows. Not five minutes later, the smell presented itself.
“What smell?” my son responded. I looked in the rearview mirror at him to see his smile, but saw none. He was genuinely curious.
“Hon, is it possible that you packed a dead animal in your bag?” I asked. “Or maybe an animal crawled into your duffel bag and died there? Because it smells unbelievable.”
“I don’t smell anything,” he responded, without a trace of sarcasm. “And no way, Mom, nothing died in my bag.”
“You realize,” my husband muttered to me as he turned off the air and cracked the windows, “that means this is a smell he is USED to.”
I turned around in the front seat to get a better look at him. And was immediately sorry I had.
The boy had taken off his shoes. Correction: he had taken off shoes that I didn’t recognize. These were shoes that were gray and hideously disfigured, pockmarked by holes, stains and unidentifiable sticky things. I’m sad to say that the socks underneath them were similar in both color and condition.
“My GOD! PUT THOSE SHOES BACK ON!” I said as I held my nose.
“You think it’s the shoes?” my son said with genuine curiosity. He leaned forward to sniff them, like a patron at a fine dining establishment presented with a particularly esoteric vintage.
“DON’T SMELL THEM!” I practically yelled. “Yes, it’s the shoes! Or maybe the disgusting socks! Didn’t the camp have laundry?”
“Yes,” he replied. “But I only used it for my dirty stuff.”
I shuddered, thinking of what awaited me in the “clean stuff” duffel bag. “But whose shoes are those?” I asked. “What happened to the shoes we bought the day before you left for camp?”
“Huh?” he responded. “Mom, these ARE the shoes we bought the day before camp.”
Reader, I can assure you that the sneakers I had purchased for camp were bright blue with a streak of orange. These shoes looked like they had emerged from Pompeii. And then fallen victim to a mudslide.
I tell you this story as a reminder to both you and I as we prepare to Pack for Camp, an activity involving multiple Sharpies and often multiple trips to Target and online shopping locales of your choice. The morals of this story, which we should take to heart in these times:
1. Assume nothing you send to camp will return anywhere near the condition in which you sent it.
2. Except, in my case, the unopened shampoo bottle. But that is another disgusting story for another day.
3. Therefore, there is no real point to getting “nice” things for camp. Camp isn’t supposed to be about things anyway.
4. When they eventually come home from camp, do yourself a favor and open the duffel bag outside. While wearing a hazmat suit.
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