A large portion of this blog so far has been realizations of wrong doing from my childhood. As a child you may not realize how your actions affect the world around you. Most things are easily forgotten, and many times you just think of serious major events in your life as funny or even hilarious. Yesterday, as I laid in bed I suddenly remembered one of these days. What transpired was ethically and morally wrong and probably illegal. I was a major player in the operation and I loved every second of it. However, at my young malicious young age, I hadn’t quote realized the possible ramifications of my actions and the actions of others. Oh, innocence.

It was around the summer of ’95, at a one week sleep away camp in near Providence, Rhode Island. As with most summer camps, it was equipped with a large natural lake for swimming in. I loved swimming, so naturally this was my favorite part of the day. Every 15 to 20 minutes or so, the lifeguards would blow a whistle; we would then have to find our buddy, hold and raise our hands in the air so they knew everyone was accounted for. Pretty standard. Here’s where the story gets interesting.
One day, me and my buddy were getting ready for a nice long session of swimming when one of the lifeguards approached us. He asked us if we could help him with special project, and it was very important. Of course, as a lifeguard is supposed to be a very trustworthy individual, we agreed. He then took us to the woods and told my friend to pull down his trunks. Woah, wait, sorry, sorry. That’s not how it went. Let me continue the real story. He wanted my friend to go out and play in the lake for a couple of minutes, while he wanted me to go hide out in a shed until the next buddy check. Then during the next buddy check, he wanted my friend to go up to a lifeguard and tell him I was missing. We thought this was awesome. We were gonna trick everyone in the camp that I was drowning or dead. I was excited, he was excited. This was going to be great, and boy was it ever.

I was brought to the shed. A man was inside. His “thing” was gorging. He told me to pull down my trunks and show him my tight… woah, what the fuck. Where are these outbursts coming from? I must apologize as it is ruining the integrity of my story. Anyway, I was only in there for about 5 minutes but it felt like hours. Finally, the whistle blew and they started the buddy check. As planned, my friend came out and told the lifeguards that he couldn’t find me anywhere. And boy, was he convincing. I could hear the pain and worry in his voice. I could see the fear in his eyes. He was on the brink of tears. He deserved an oscar for that performance. Thats when all hell broke loose.

They made all the campers get out of the lake. The counselors, panicked, got in in a big line, and began combing the waters, diving around, all frantickly searching for me. A couple were crying hysterically. I couldn’t contain my laughter. This went on for about 3 minutes, just to the point where they all thought I was dead. One of the lifeguards then came to get me out of the shed, and presented me to the nearly dead from panic counselors. The missing camper, safe all along. They were incredibly relived of course. I got a few head locks, noogies, and “Urrrghh, youuu” while in tears from them. My memory kind of fades off after that, but me and my friend were thoroughly proud of ourselves. For some reason my butt hurt as well.

Now zoom back to today. As an adult I can put this event into some perspective. How fucked up was that? I mean seriously, making people thing a kid is dead? Drowned in a lake? And this wasn’t something they could do every week, or even every summer. It wouldn’t be believable that way. This is something that had have been never done before at the camp. Those lifeguards came up with it to fuck with everybody’s minds. To “train” them. I wonder what kind of ass munching these guys got from the counselors after that big drill of theirs. I wonder if they were fired. I still love those guys for giving me that amazing “get to see everyones reactions after your death” experience. It was awesome. I just didn’t understand at that age that child molestation, I mean, that that kind irresponsible action was probably not acceptable. I hope I’m mature enough to understand it now.

-Maxim