Writer's Workshop: Fire Drill!!

Writer's Workshop day!

Today I chose the prompt Share A Summer Camp Memory.

My friend Kelly and I met at Shadow Rim Ranch Girl Scout Camp in Payson, AZ in the summer of 1994. We both got sick and had to stay in the infirmary. She went home the next day and I went home two days later on the bus.

A short year later we were practically glued at the hip having spent numerous weekends at each other's homes, and countless hours on the phone. My grandmother and her mom packed us up in her family's van and drove up back up the mountain to spend another week at summer camp. We giggled excitedly about hikes and the sing along around the camp fire every night. Well, actually, we couldn't have a fire. It was fire season and the fire forecast was too high for fires. So, there was a battery powered lantern or two in the fire pit, and we sang around that every night after dinner.

We got to camp and were led to our cabin, had the usual chatter with our cabin mates, met the other girls in our unit and headed to the all camp meet.

Now, there are a few things you knew for certain every year when you went to camp. You would always go to flag raising and flag lowering every morning and every night before breakfast and before dinner. You would always recite the girl scout promise at flag raising every morning. You would always say some sort of grace, usually in the form of a silly song set to the tune of an old TV show...ie Addam's Family theme. And there was always, and I mean ALWAYS a surprise fire drill. You never knew when it was gonna happen. You would hear whispers, but they were always wrong.

One night after our unit had gotten back from a hike Kelly had decided she wanted to take a shower. This was the first time in our camp history that we were allowed to take showers at leisure and weren't led to the showers while our counselors timed us 4 minutes with a stopwatch. They had installed timed showers that turned off after 4 minutes on their own. It had been a good 4 mile hike. We were all hot and sweaty and dusty. The majority of our cabin, however, had opted for a shower after dinner as we were less then 15 minutes from the bell being rung for dinner. Kelly wanted a shower though. She was persistent. She had to have a shower. NOW.

The fastest way to get a shower done in our time limit for showers was to undress in the cabin, wrap yourself in a towel and take what you need for your shower and go. I got Kelly's shower bag for her while she wrapped herself up, and we walked to the showers together, laughing about something we had done while I was staying at her house before camp. And then, it happened. The fire bell started ringing. This, of course, cracked me up. Of course this would happen. Of course the fire bell would ring with only 15 minutes to spare before the dinner bell with Kelly in a towel. Why wouldn't it? We stopped and stared at each other. How were we going to get her out in the field, wearing nothing but a towel?

Our cabin mates came over, and we created a kind of human circle around Kelly while we walked out into the open field for the drill. She crouched in the middle of us, hiding from view. I'm sure other girls might have been wondering, "Why in the hell are the walking in a circle with their backs turned to each other like that?" It looked odd. Very odd.

Once the drill was over, there were only 5 minutes to spare until the dinner bell rang. Our counselor's told us to hurry back to the cabin to dress. Kelly and I sprinted out of the field and to our cabin. She dressed in a hurry and vowed to NEVER take a surprise shower so close to dinner again.

Thankfully, the next year, this incident did not repeat itself.