Girls Construction Camp, day one
I haven't had to wake up first thing in the morning for a job in at least a year, so of course, this morning greeted me with a flat tire as I was blearily stumbling around in the 7AM. HELLO MISH said the universe, DID YOU LIKE MY JOKE ABOUT YOU HAVING TO BE SOMEWHERE ON TIME BEFORE 10AM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ACTUALLY A YEAR?
I limped my car to the nearest tire place, which turned out to be a Les Schwab. Did you know Les Schwab is French for "deeply snooty rich-people joint where they'll look disdainfully at your grubby camp-clothes and tell you it's a minimum 2 hour wait to change a tire, and then only if you already own their special rich people tires"? Yelp knew this, but failed to tell me until I made it there and wheedled enough air out of them to drive to the camp site. My wild-eyed desperation at 8AM encouraged them to do something to get rid of me quickly, I think.
I got to camp only half an hour late, making me half an hour early for the campers. Bless this crew of zealously prepared counselors and their start times. Today was welding field trip day, and as a gift, the campus we're teaching on had massive road construction that prevented the bus from making it to our site. I went bus-hunting, found the confused driver, called the counselors, trekked 40 high school girls through a construction site, and got rolling. In the process, I didn't get counted on the roster for box lunches. Such is life.
Much like last year, I find myself utterly adoring each and every precious teenage girl that has been placed under my care for the week. It's a unique feeling, wanting to both be their best friend and also whack their iphones out of their hands constantly. Today I taught my crew how to use the plasma cutter, and got all of them over their collective fear of DEATH SPARKS and LOUD AIR NOISES to successfully cut out several weird, malformed shapes, which I freaked out over like they were Picasso.
We piled back into the bus just in time to get them back to camp as their parents were arriving, and as campus security was nestling parking violation warnings under most of the counselors' windshield wipers. (HEH, said the universe. I'M SO FUNNY.) Inexplicably, my tire held a tiny bit of air all day, just enough to limp me to the nearest tire place to camp, which was a grungy cash-only hole in the wall staffed by incredibly sweet Hispanic guys who sold me two new tires for $75 and let me drive out with the goods to find an ATM because I had all of $12 on me.
All in all, it was a good first day of camp.
