FUF #27

And in the end (of the work week), the FUF you take is equal to the FUF you make. At least I think I heard that somewhere once.

Happy Follow Up Friday, friends and friends of friends. As is customary, I shall spend this post a-ramblin' about things that are related to this week's posts, things that are completely unrelated, and then dazzle you with the hottest trend since going to rehab: Car Watch.

I spent a couple of posts talking about the Rope Trail. There's an epilogue to that tale that I didn't find a place for, so it's about to get FUFfed. Later in the summer that we found the trail, there was a "find the hiding counselors" game one afternoon. We gave them time to hide and then set out to find them and secure their signatures as proof. After going around with the rest of the campers for a while, my buddies and I decided to check out the Rope Trail just in case any of the counselors knew about it. As we started climbing the hill, one other kid ran up and started following us. "Just don't tell anyone about this place because we want to keep it secret," we begged him. He agreed, and we got up to the landing part. There, right in front of us, was not only the hill with the ropes in all of its glory, but also a counselor holding onto one of them and about a dozen kids chasing him. How did everyone know about this place? We felt both saddened by the realization that our "secret place" wasn't secret and stupid for ever believing that it was ours alone. At least it impressed the girls when it really mattered.

Earlier, I also wrote about how I said "Howdy" a lot for a week of camp. I was a strange kid, and I often said strange things. In 6th grade, I even had my own catch phrase. I say "my own," but it was really the Beach Boys' phrase. I'd exclaim, "Help me, Rhonda!" in class at opportune times and get laughs from everyone (including the teacher). It was a great tension breaker, and I busted it out maybe once a week. Hmmm, I've been sitting here for about five minutes now trying to paraphrase what I'd use it in place of, but I can't think of how to do it. If I could only remember some examples of times I said it, that would help, but I'm coming up blank. Gentle readers, were any of you in sixth grade with me? Crap. I'll IM my friend Cheryl and see if she remembers. She helped me remember the one line I couldn't recall from our school song, so I have faith in her.

Last weekend, I played some golf with my buddies. By "played some golf," I mean "was physically on the course but did very little that resembled actual golf." While we were waiting for the group ahead of us to tee off on the first hole, the starter was checking our receipts to make sure we paid, etc. Another group was driving up in their carts, and a guy said to the starter, "Can you move up a little?" "You have enough room," the guy replied without looking. The other golfer slowly accelerated and then made it through with over a foot to spare. After a second, I said, "Looks like he got through just fine." "A retarded girl could've gotten through," he said gruffly before driving away. Dusty turned to me and asked, "Do people sense that you write a blog and purposely say outrageous things around you?" It sure seems like it sometimes, my friends.

Hey, did anybody else ever think the word was "wheelbarrel" as a kid? No? Just me? Fuck. Actually, I'd love to hear what words you all mis-knew either as kids or adults. Here, I'll go again to hopefully make it easier. Up until a few years ago, I was way off on a word. "Inclement," which very well might be an Auto Follower, was something very different in my head. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I always thought it was "inclimate weather," which not only makes zero sense but is also missing an n. I wish I could explain where the made-up word based on the mispronunciation of an established word came from, but I got nothing. I wonder if I ever wrote that in papers or something and confused the hell out of a teacher.

Car Watch!

I didn't receive too many Car Watch items this week, and I didn't see too many on my own. Fortunately, Rockabye was on the case. First off, he saw "LTSTNGO" on a license plate. Oh sure, it's probably, "Let's Tango" but it could be "Let Stan Go!" (Those are the same exact letters when all spelled out too, which I find cool.) The thing is, if I had a relative named Stan in jail for a crime he didn't commit, I'd consider getting that plate to support his plight. Imagine how pissed off I'd be to try to get it, only to find that it was taken by someone who just wants to dance. I'm so glad that's not the case, for Imaginary Stan's sake and for mine.

Rockabye also saw "1800GOD" on a plate. I'm completely thrown by this one. I've spent a lot of time complaining about 800 numbers with more that 7 letters, but I never thought I'd see the opposite. Maybe it's not supposed to be a phone number at all, but rather a date. Who was like a God in 1800? George Washington died in December of 1799, so it's not him. Pope Pius VII was ordained that year, so that's a possibility. Maybe it's a reference to someone who can pound a bunch of Cuervo 1800 tequila without puking. That's certainly not me. I give up.

He didn't stop there, folks. He also sent me, "IBGLFIN," and clarified that the person was not in fact golfing. So basically, the dude's a liar every single time his car isn't parked at a golf course. Do you think he always offers to drive others to the course so he can be factually accurate every so often? In my version of the story, he begs them to let him drive. I like my version.

My dad wrote me and said that he saw "MS SHUGI" on a plate. In his words, it is "Yiddish for mishugina or mishugi, meaning crazy." I'm not 100% sold on that, since it could easily be someone who just misses rap mogul Suge (pronounced like "shook" but with a G at the end) Knight since he's frequently in and out of jail. I'm just saying.

Two final items, and these are both from my own observations. First off, I saw a van for a heating and air company called "Temperatures Unlimited." Really? Unlimited? Ok then, make my house five hundred degrees. Better yet, make it absolute zero. Yeah, let's see how these f'ers work with the Kelvin scale. Beeotch!

And lastly, I saw a plate that read, "D FLMAKR." To me, that could be one of two things. Option 1: It's someone who is pompous enough that he (it was a he, by the way) wants to be knows as "THE film maker." No others, just me! Option 2: It's a D-Film maker, as in movies so bad that they're somehow two levels worse than B-movies. I hope it's the second interpretation, because I would love to see what a D-movie is like.

That's it for this week, my dear, sweet, gentle readers. I hope you all have kick-ass weekends, and that you're well-rested and ready for whatever I throw at you on Monday. I don't know what that is yet, so I hope I'm ready for it too. Got anything on your mind in the meantime? Send an email to ptklein@gmail.com, and maybe, just maybe, all of your dreams will come true (provided that all of your dreams revolve around sending an electronic message to ptklein@gmail.com and having it received by yours truly). Shaloha, friends, and I'll see you soon.

The road not taken

Welcome to the middle of the week, everyone. Saying that reminded me of a very, very strange scene in a Monthy Python movie ("The Meaning of Life" I think) in which they randomly prance around and welcome viewers to the middle of the film. They make faces, noises, and do some genuinely odd things before returning to the movie. I'm not going to do that, but I thought you'd like to know what I reminded myself of.

So, when I bid you adieu yesterday, I had just told you about the Rope Trail and the beautiful valley we surprisingly found from atop it. We agreed to keep the trail as our secret and not tell counselors or others about it. Well there's one minor thing that I may not have explicitly stated yet about this camp: it was all boys. Therefore, when we attended a week in which the neighboring girls' camp was staying there with us, everything changed. We were now 12 or 13 I think, so this was a momentous week for us.

Day 1 of having the girls at our camp, the secret was already out. Drew, who was always the only ladies man in our group, started chatting it up with a few girls. Before long, he and I were acting like morons and getting laughs, so things were working splendidly. Then Drew got an idea and called the guys over. "What do you think about inviting the girls to meet us at midnight to go up the Rope Trail?" he asked. As if our pact had never even existed in the first place, we gleefully jumped on board. After all, what was the point of having a secret place if not to look cool disclosing it? So it was in hushed tones that we told them about the awesome trail and where to meet us. They agreed, and we spent all of dinner trying hard to contain our excitement.

Personally, I didn't think it would happen. There were too many variables involved. We had to successfully sneak out of our cabin without waking our counselor, the girls had to do the same, we all had to move quietly enough to avoid detection, and then sneak back into our cabins and bunks stealthily. Miraculously though, the plan went off without a hitch. When my digital watch hit 11:55, I quietly scootched to the end of the bunk and climbed down. The others followed my cue, and with flashlights in hand, we went to the rendezvous point. (Did you know that the plural of 'rendezvous' is also 'rendezvous'? I like that.) A minute later, we saw the glowing lights of an oncoming party. It was the two girls we'd met before plus a friend of theirs.

We greeted them, and DJ and Chrissy introduced us to their friend. I've never written out her name before, but it was pronounced "Kuh-NEET-uh." I've always pictured it as "Kanita," so that's how I'll write it in this space. Amid all the stifled giggles and shushing, we made it to the Rope Trail and took turns climbing up. Once we were all at the top, we took them over to the view of the valley and sat down. Although it was dark out, they could still see enough of the area with the flashlights to know how beautiful it was. There we sat for probably an hour, just shooting the shit and having a good time. Not to sound too immodest, but my friends and I were on fire. Full of great jokes and quick, witty responses, we felt really cool and were soaking up every minute of it (since it was such a rarity).

After the hour or so, we made our way back down the ropes and were about to head over to our respective cabins when Kanita stopped me. "I like you, do you like me?" she asked. It was more of a statement, really, and it caught me off guard. Here's where I think I differ from some of my male counterparts. Instead of stopping, surveying the situation (Drew and DJ were clearly hitting it off, as were Adam and Chrissy), and maybe having something of a real girlfriend for the week, I said this: "Uh, the thing is, I don't really know you. I mean, you only said like two sentences while we were up there. I'd like to get to know you though." She understood and said that we'd be seeing a lot of each other in the coming days. I was intrigued and a little frightened by the possibility.

The next day, we had some free time again and were hanging out by the flagpole area in the middle of camp. DJ snuck up behind me and took my baseball hat off as a joke. My hair was a mess, so I was about to ask for it back. Before the words could come out though, DJ was knocked to the ground with a forceful shoulder to the mid-section by a magically-appearing Kanita. She bent down, scooped up my hat, dusted it off, and said, "Here you go," with half a smile. "Thank you?" I said, before looking over at a stunned DJ to make sure she was ok.

A couple of days passed with the same kind of intense attention from Kanita, and she was really beginning to frighten me a little. Drew kept pushing me to kiss her, but I really didn't want to because I just didn't like her like that. Also, her neck was freakishly long and it really weirded me out. We had a dance one night, and I slow danced with Kanita once at the urging of everyone, making less eye contact with her than with my friends behind her. She was wearing a turtleneck after all, and that only accentuated her problem area.

After our dance, she asked if I wanted to go outside to talk, and I agreed. I guess I was more into looking cool in front of my friends than taking personal responsibility. Oh well, such is the way of the adolescent boy. We sat on a bench near the cafeteria/auditorium and talked for a little while. She told me where she was from (which I think may have been Denver for some reason) and how many siblings she had. I told her a little more about myself, and then we went back in to the undeserved hoots and hollers from our friends.

Then I messed up a little. I was hanging out with the guys and Chrissy, and talk somehow turned to Kanita. Jason N. said something about how I was probably going to marry her, and I replied, "No way, I don't even like her!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a long-necked girl walking away quickly. "Uh oh," I thought, "This could be trouble." And trouble it was, gentle readers.

Tune in tomorrow to get the end of the story...if you dare. Yeah, sorry, it's another "to be continued" one. I must think I'm Dan Brown or something.

Off the beaten path

Hello Wednesday! Wow, this week is just flying by, and man am I glad to see you! It feels so good to be back here on Hump Day after putting up with those first two crappy days of th- huh? What's that? Oh, not Wednesday. Riiiight. Sorry, Tuesday. I, uh, I really didn't mean that stuff. It was the booze talking, yeah, that's it. You know, the beer I had on Saturday is just catching up to me now and it makes me say some crazy shit. Sorry 'bout that. Let's try this again.

Happy Tuesday everyone! It seems like only yesterday that I was writing you about certain parts of my sleep-away camp experiences. Damn, that was yesterday. What's wrong with me? Well, I've got some more camp stuff to talk about, so I hope you're willing to read more on that topic.

After attending the camp for three or four weeks per summer over the course of a few years, my core group of friends and I really felt like we owned the place. I was always there with Jason N., Drew, and Adam, but we also had our friends Silver, BJ, Sammy, and others join us every once in a while. That's a pretty sizeable group, and since we were among the oldest campers and all of the counselors liked us, we probably got away with more than others would have.

Our last summer there was an eventful one. None of us knew it was our last one at the time, because we all expected to come back as Counselors in Training at some point, but that never happened. The first major event was that we found what we'd come to know as "The Rope Trail." It was during some free time on the first day of a session, and we went exploring on a different side of the camp than we had before. We started behind the spooky Cabin 13 and climbed a hill that seemingly had nothing interesting atop it.

(Here's a quick side story that I feel like interjecting - sorry about the herky-jerky nature of this post. Another week, we stayed in Cabin 13. It was usually left vacant, which led to its scary reputation, but it was a full camp that week and they stuck the older kids there. One night, a few people from our cabin were coming back later than I did, and they heard a noise in the bushes. They looked, and according to them, saw what looked like a glowing mask and heard a sound that they described as "ching ching." I initially thought this was funny, but they were really spooked by it and didn't appreciate our laughter. Another cabin mate suggested that it was nothing more than two animals doing the nasty while wearing a suit of armor and a metal condom. They didn't find that funny either, but the rest of us sure did. It at least explained the "ching ching" more than the glowing mask did. We never found out what it was, but I always assumed that it was just something like a raccoon hitting a sprinkler...repeatedly...with a metal condom.)

So we were on that unknown hill behind the creepy Cabin 13. It was a little more treacherous than the other hikes we'd been on, and there was no sign that anyone else had been there for quite a while. No well-worn paths, no man-made steps; just nature in every direction. When we got to the top, we quickly surmised that it wasn't actually the top but rather just a stopping point. We followed a little path off to the right, and then we saw it: in front of us was another sizeable hill, but this one had ropes hanging down from the top. It looked really cool, and we knew we had to climb it. After giving a couple of tugs on the ropes to make sure they could support our weight, we scaled the mini cliff one by one. Now I'm not the biggest "adventure sport" guy, but it felt really impressive to emulate Batman climbing up a skyscraper. ('Skyscraper' is a fantastic word, isn't it? Kudos to whoever first put that together.)

Once all of us were up there, we took a look around. I think it was Drew who called us over from out of view. We had to jump over a few places where a walkway was missing, and you'd better believe I felt like Indiana Jones. There, off to the left, was a gorgeous, lush valley that was completely incongruous with the rest of the scenery. We felt like we'd stumbled upon the Garden of Eden for it looked so untouched by man. We knew that someone had put the ropes up, so we clearly weren't discovering anything, but maybe they'd been sitting there unused for years. We made an executive decision right then and there: this was our spot and our Rope Trail. We weren't going to tell anyone else about it and would only go there for special occasions when no one else was watching. No telling the counselors and no telling our fellow campers; just our special place.

As you can probably guess, things didn't end quite like that. I'll be back tomorrow to finish this bad boy up. There's too much to squeeze into today, so I hope you're alright with that. Got anything you want to share? ptklein@gmail.com is the way to do it. See you tomorrow, friends.