Daily Shame

Here is a Marietta story of a certain trial I suffered through every day for the last few weeks, ESPECIALLY THE LAST ONE.

*themes music begins*....picture creepy, spooky music...

Every day it was harder to bear and my heart broke in two. I faced it every morning, afternoon and night, and sometimes even in between! During breakfast, I would suddenly get an insecure feeling that washed over me. I suddenly wondered, "Is there something on my face?" "Is my hair sticking up?" "Is there a gigantic booger hanging out of my nose?" I wanted to weep incessantly, but I didn't for fear that my campers wouldn't love me the same. The feeling would go away after a few minutes and I could smile again. But I knew deep down that it would come back to haunt me. When leaving the dining hall, after emerging out of the double doors, a wave of shame washed over me once again. I could barely keep my face from contorting because of my humiliation. My campers sometimes would hold my hand to help me get through the challenge. They began to catch on by the middle of the week. Thank you lovely campers :)

Soon enough, random campers would come up to me and look me in the eye, saying creepily, "The duck flies as midnight." I could almost feel my skin crawl. Like a bolt of lightning, the feeling washed over me again. I would frolic away in sadness and my campers would trail in behind me. Soon, I started trying to put a curse on them by saying, "The alligator lurks at dawn." Sadly, it didn't have the same effect on them. They just laughed and pointed, and stared. I wanted to burst into tears, but held back.

*dark voice* "The duck flies as midnight." Right at that moment, several pairs of eyes would stare me down and penetrate to the depths of my soul. My loyal campers tried to protect me, but there was only so much they could do. A couple of them even started to laugh....I felt betrayed. I collapsed to my knees and woke up in the hospital....*beep*.....*beep*.....*beep*....
*music fades*
Alright, well this story is only about 10% true. Let me explain. Kaylin and I started a tradition type of thing where I would tell all my campers to stare at Kaylin and see how long it took her to notice. She did the same back to me :) Several times, I would leave the cafeteria with my campers and Kaylin's cabin would be waiting outside the door for me. Well, the last week, her campers were pros at staring. She would say the code words, "The duck flies at midnight" and they would all stare immediately. Almost like robots. During meals, I would get that "feeling" that someone is looking at you. I felt the need to hide behind my campers. Haha! Well, one day, one of Kaylin's campers came up to me and looked me straight in the eyes and said with a straight face...."The duck flies at midnight." Totally confused, I stammered and replied..."Well the alligator lurks at dawn." She laughed uncontrollably and I felt lost and confused. My campers were confused too...it was quite hilarious. Finally, they told me what that meant and that it was their code phrase. It was like a revelation in my life. I finally understood. It was awesome!!!


Here is a picture of Kaylin's whole cabin who were so good at making me feel self-conscious :)

Here are two of the girls who were oober good at it. They would stare even if the rest of their cabin wasn't. The one of the left is the girl who first said, "The duck flies at midnight" to me :) The one on the right is her sister :D