Gorilla Attacks/Deer Encounters, Lost Kittens, Camp, and Spazzy Macbooks

Gorilla Attacks

Here we see Danny Tal in his photographic prime, complete with camera flash and graphic tshirt. Over the years Danny has become the subject of our ridicule and practical jokes. Don't get me wrong, we love him all the same, but sometimes that love goes away. Especially when he tries to make jokes. And as the evil teenagers we are, we at times go out of our way in order to preform cruel practical jokes on him. I will now recount to you one such joke.

It was Monday night when Pat pulled me aside and explained the plan which we were about to carry out. All the guys were over at my house, and he had devised a brilliant scheme to scare the wits out of Danny. We briefed everyone about the plan, and I announced to the guys that my father would be returning early and that everyone had to leave. After a convincing show-me-the-text-message scene between Greg and I, the act was sold, and the guys left for Pat's house. I ran to the basement and grabbed (ironically enough) Danny's Halloween gorilla suit and mask. Once they had moved out of sight I sprinted to Dan Gregorio's car, which was waiting up the street, and we sped off in the direction of the golf course.

After dropping me off and meeting me on the golf course, Dan Gregorio met back with me and I put on the gorilla suit. We walked over the course to the dark side with the large lake, and took our places in the woods by the maintenance building. I texted Pat, informing him that we were in position, and he led the group across the development on a journey to the maintenance building. You might ask why a group of 16 year old's would even want to go to a dark maintenance building on a dark golf course by the woods in the middle of the night. The answer's pretty simple. To scare themselves silly. Its the same reason why people watch horror movies, for that rush of adrenaline and the tingly feeling you get when that monster magically appears behind the terrified girl hiding in the closet.Now that we seem justified and considerably less strange I'll take a short break to go into detail about the second part of the first title:

Deer encounters

Shortly after Dan Gregorio and I set up in the pitch blackness of the wood's edge, we began to hear leaves crumpling, followed by this terrifying noise that seemed to be only a few feet away from us. It was a succession of a sort of guttural snorts that sounded like a dinosaur from the Jurassic park movies. Personally, I was terrified even though I immediately recognized it as a deer call, a sound I had heard from watching various hunting TV shows, but in the murky pool of darkness that enclosed us my mind went rampant with thoughts of rouge and rabid deer hell bent on the destruction and consumption of disobedient little children. I kept whispering "It's just a deer, dont worry!" to Dan, trying to calm him down in case he was freaking out as badly was I was. The deer then left us and continued on it's path to scare other mischievous teenagers wandering around the woods in the middle of the night.

Back to the Gorilla Suit Plan

Shortly after the deer left us, we began to hear the voices of the group approaching. The moon was mostly dark, and I could barely make out the figures of the people coming towards us. As they neared our hiding spot I struggled to locate the silhouette that belonged to Danny. They walked by and continued in the direction of the maintenance building. I got up and began to approach them from behind, while making the most grotesque and horrifying noise my body could produce. It was like straight out of a horror movie. I singled Danny out, and moved towards him, making the noise louder, and stretching out my arms. He let out a series of desperate whimpers, and clutched Pat for dear life before taking off on a gallant sprint faster than I had ever seen. Now, I've chased Danny before, and its pretty easy to catch him, but he was BOOKING, and I could barely keep up as I chased him out onto the fairway. A few minutes later we were all breathless and laughing at hilarity of the whole thing, Danny included. I have to admit, it was the best Danny Prank to this date.

Lost Kittens

Tuesday morning I woke up and began getting my things together to leave for camp. I showered and went outside to check the mail for my shades. When I got back into the house I continued rummaging around gathering the things I would need for the week. I was in the living room when I realized I had not seen Jibbles in the past ten minutes. He likes to hide and nap in out of sight places so I went and checked his usual hang out spots, but there was no Jibbles. I checked all the rooms. I started calling his name louder. No meowing. No lazy orange white fuzz ball dozing in a corner. I kept my cool. This had happened before, and I always found him under the couch, or in the laundry basket, or under the Christmas tree. But he wasn't in those places either. I started calling out even louder. "Jibbles? Jibbles where are you?" Still, there was no response. I searched faster, I was screaming. Vic would be at my house in 15 minutes, and eventually we would have to leave for camp, and I would be gone for a week. By the time Vic and Gabi got to my house I was frantic. All I could think of was my poor kitten being run down in the street, or dying all alone from the intense 100 degree heat forecast for that day. Vic got here, and we got into his car and drove around the development as I called Jibble's name out the window. We didn't find him. We split up and searched the development. Still, there was no Jibbles. I was in a state of panic. An hour had passed from the time we were supposed to leave. I didn't want Vic and Gabi to miss registration, so I forced myself to face the facts, and put my bags in Vic's car. I placed Jibble's box house on the front porch next to a big bowl of food and ice water. I left the back door open and sprinkled bits of dry food on the patio and left a small pile just inside the house near the door. I got into the car and we left. Later on I broke down and bawled silently behind aviator shades in the back seat.

When you spend you much time with a pet, and you take care of it and sleep next to it, and feed it and cuddle it, you grow really attached to it. I love my little kitten. A slide show of memories played to the somber music echoing in the car. And I began to accept the fact that I might not ever bury my face in his laundry smelling fur and watch him snooze on my laptop keyboard.

Later that day my dad sent me the picture up there with a caption simply reading "Found" I sighed with relief and proceeded to hug the closest person in the room.

Reunited

Camp

There comes a time in one's life when one must pick up the flag, wave on your teammates, and charge forward into the mist of CAMP!

I don't even know how to write this one. There's just so much to write about, so many stories, and too many words I would need to describe accurately what camp is like.

The best part is the people. You have your school friends, your neighborhood friends, and your church friends, but then, then you have your camp friends. I guess it must be the huge gaps of time between the times we see each our camp friends that make them so different from our other types of friends. Being apart from them, and having them out of your everyday life makes seeing them again 10 times better.

Then there's the crazy games like Amazon Women, which is a terrifying experience we wait for every camp. The guys from all the teams form a disorderly pile and lock arms and legs and hang on for dear life as the girls swarm on the pile and begin ripping guys off the cluster and dragging them off. Each guy is worth an amount of points and the team with the most guys from other teams wins. You also get points for the amount of guys remaining in the cluster after the game is over. There are injuries, there is crying, and you see a horrifying side of women you'll never see anywhere else. Nipple twisting, pinching and just down right violence. Watching your friends get dragged off, clawing at the ground, as gangs of girls laugh and smile evil smiles is something that never leaves your mind.

Staying up late and talking in the dorms, hilarious conversations only the people there would understand, and just hanging out in the snack bar all add to the experience. I really feel like I can't do camp justice here. There's just so much to cover, and I'm getting reallll tired right now.

Lastly though, there's the Relay Race (of death). It's a grueling competition where the whole team comes together and competes in a series of events ranging from eating a raw potato, to shooting water balloons at the rec staff, to climbing a 7 foot brick wall.

This year I was on team Slate (a more creative name for grey). In our absence of care, we accidentally became a black power-fist-saluting, staying silent while other teams cheered for points at role call, pretty much communistic team. It was great. We were completely different. And like last year I bore the flag the whole week. Also great.

What more is there to say? Camp is awesome. Go, or send your kid's one day. You wont regret it.

The timezone my account on blogspot is off, and I'm not sure what time this post will say it was posted at, but its 3:57AM right now and I am BEAT. I would write more and go into detail, but I just cant. There's so much more about camp my tired head can't put into words right now.

One last quick thing

Spazzy Macbooks

My Macbook being stupid right now. Throughout the time it took to write this post it has froze and went into screen seizure 3 times. Then when I try to turn it on it makes this obnoxious beeping. I am greatly saddened by this. Goodnight.

-Chris