Adventures in Scouting: Finding My Calling

Every Scout troop does things differently on camping trips. I’ve seen troops where the parents and Scoutmasters do all the planning and duty assignments, equally and fairly for everybody involved. I’ve seen troops so big they had to have separate camping trips for each patrol, and they planned months ahead of time for events. I’ve seen democratic troops, where votes are taken for duty rotations (voting is dumb; an iron fist is way more efficient). But my troop? We were…different.

"We didn’t eat if no one cooked, and our parents could (and did) drive to Burger King without us."

We were the misfits, the Delta Tau Chis, the Warriors, if you will, of Scouting. Because of our communal rambunctious attitude, and the equally devious nature of our prankster Scoutmasters, our trips’ duty rosters were always hastily scrawled on loose-leaf paper the day before a campout weekend. We had no time to think of equality or fairness. We had “lounging around” and “incessantly poking the empty fire-pit in hopes of it magically lighting itself” to do. If you acted out or were new in the troop, you got shit detail. Simple as that, just like the military.

That said, I was the “charismatic yet lazy” kid in my troop, which actually translates to “born leader” in Scouting terms (look it up, it’s right there on page five of the Scouting Manual). I always tried to avoid my duties by convincing my peers of the communally-beneficial motivations behind said work, and why they were better suited for the job instead of me. Lenin would’ve been proud of my powers of persuasion. Unfortunately, this eventually struck a chord with the adult leadership, who saw fit to use their own leadership skills to turn my own teenage comrades against me during duty assignments.

I was therefore stuck with shit jobs on camping trips including, but not limited to: KP (Kitchen Patrol) duty, kindling scavenger, axe swinger, water mule, garbage hunter, and most importantly, getting myself lost in the woods and then single-handedly using my savvy Scout skills to find my way back (twice). Worst, of course, was KP duty.

Morning KP, to be exact. Our troop’s longer and more daring camping trips were in the autumn and winter, and the mornings were beyond “fucking cold.” In “fucking cold,” you can move your fingers and toes, and your genitals are outside of your body. You can loudly pronounce, “fucking cold” in “fucking cold” weather.

This specific type of cold was Death’s hand slowly caressing your extremities in preparation for rigor mortis. Words were reduced to mumbles and grunts. Shivering was uncontrollable, and your penis transformed into a wrinkly vagina.

The hardest part of morning KP was waking up. No one ever brought an alarm clock (with working batteries), so basically the first person up, regardless of whether they were cooking or not, had to wake up the cooking crew, lest everyone starve. Seriously, we didn’t eat if no one cooked, and our parents could (and did) drive to Burger King without us when that happened. Reveille conversations typically went something like this (although I recall this exchange most vividly, since it was the first time I got pulled for insubordination):

(violent shaking of the tent)

Tommy: Hey idiot, wake up.
Ben: Go to hell, you and Tyrone are on KP.
Tommy: Not you, moron. Kick Tyrone and wake his ass up.
Me: Goddammit, what? What?!
Tommy: You’re on KP, idiot. Joe (our Scoutmaster) says to get up or I’m allowed to drop your tent.
Ben: Hey! You better not drop my tent on my body.
Tommy: Hey man, it’ll be Tyrone’s fault if he doesn’t get his ass outta that sleeping bag. Blame him.
Ben: Tyrone, get up!
Me: Both of you can fuck off. It’s freezing. Drop the tent. I’m safe in my sleeping bag.
Tommy: I’m getting Joe.
Me: Whatever.

(one minute later)

Joe: Tyrone, get up.
Me: No. It’s freezing out there. Drop the tent and find someone else. The sun’s not even up.
Joe: Ben, kick him.
Ben: Been doing it for a minute now. In the head. He’s not moving.
Joe: Then open the flap. Tommy, help me grab his sleeping bag. Let’s help him leap that first hurdle. One, two, pull!
Me: Hey, hey! Stop that! What the hell?! Ah man, now my sleeping bag’s covered in mud. Thanks a lot, Joe. You know, we still got one more night in this hellhole.
Joe: Oh look, you’re up and about. Say, since you’re just standing there, how’s about you toss a couple sausages on the griddle for your buddy Joe?
Me: I hate you.
Joe: I don’t care. Chop chop.

If there's one thing KP duty taught me (aside from cooking damn good sausages), it was that I was not destined to be a laborer. My charisma and logic were being wasted finding ways to avoid work that was always inevitable anyway. But how could I avoid work and still fulfill the tenets of Scouting? Then it hit me: troop leader elections.

I'm not an evil person, although some may disagree after the things I said on my rise to power. Lying, wooing, spreading negative rumors about the competitors—it’s all part of the political game, right? Sure, promises were made and never kept, but whatever, that's part of the teenage life. I was in it to win it. I may have been a misfit forever stuck on KP duty, but I changed that perception in a few short weeks. To them, I became a visionary, a progressive and charming leader of the people. I used my (vast) experience in the kitchen to falsely promise tastier meals and better, fairer duty rosters. They couldn't get enough, and I knew that they knew I was the right man for the job.

Election Day came and I won the rank of patrol leader in a landslide vote. The crowds went wild. My patrol members looked to me for guidance. No longer would I slave away in the kitchen on deathly cold mornings.

I was the Old Man, the Big Cheese, if you please. I was part of the leadership circle. I was solid. Nothing could stand in my way. Nothing…

To be continued…