Skittles and My Camper Misty

Taste the rainbow....

For some reason I was inspired to buy a bag of Skittles today. What is so odd about that, you ask? Well, the only time in my life that I have purchased Skittles was when I was working at camp. For some reason, I always craved Skittles there. So tastey, so fruity. It just seemed to me to be a camp treat. So I bought Skittles from the canteen, along with my soda, which unfortunately would just foam in my mouth from all the sugar in the Skittles. I should have just had water, I probably would have saved about $30 each summer by doing so. But hind sight is 20/20.

Anyway, It was my first summer as a counselor, in I think the first month of the summer. There are rules at camp, one of them being no food in the cabin. The last thing you wanted to deal with was a furry forest creature sharing the cabin with a bunch of screaming girls. So let's set the stage....

It was the first night of the week with the new group of girls. They were middles school aged girls, which were one of my favorite aged groups, but that's besides the point. It was lights out time, probably around 10 or so. It amazes me now how good of sleep I got every single night while working at camp, and the amount of sleep I got too. Not to mention quiet time every day, which I slept through. Hey, it's the fresh air!

I had just turned the lights out when I heard a little rattling of a candy wrapper. Crinkle crinkle crinkle....munch munch munch....crinkle crinkle crinkle...munch munch munch. I sighed.

"Whoever is eating whatever, just make sure that you don't drop it on the...." clink clink clink...roll roll roll... " ground." Too late. I could hear candy rolling all over the floor in the complete darkness.

"Oooooo------kaaaaayyy. Whoever dropped all of the candy on the floor, make sure you pick it all up tomorrow morning." It was too late to go hunting for candy.

I found out the next day that the candy in question were Skittles, and the camper in question was Misty, both of which were part of my favorite things that summer. Misty was awesome, and such a sweet kid, and little did she know that by dropping her Skittles, our cabin bonded faster than any other I had that summer. At the end of the week I bought the whole group a bag of Skittles, even on my little $140 a week paycheck. They were worth it.

So today, by buying the bag of Skittles, I was able to relive that moment that summer, and I was able to think of Misty hoping that she has stayed the sweet kid she was 12 years ago, which I am sure she did. 12 years. Wow. She's got to be about 25 years old now. Crazy how time flies by. Crazy how a bag of candy can bring back so many memories.