Good Girls gone bad, or Not...

by L.A. Kohl
June 19, 2005

(published in the June 22, 2005 edition of the "Bullseye", )
We all talk about teenagers sometimes, with a “tsk, tsk," a slight frown, and a shake of our heads. We’re quick to point out that the younger generation is just so disrespectful, or so disobedient, or some other kind of “dis” word. So, I thought perhaps you’d enjoy hearing about some teenage girls who did a very lousy job at camp at being ….BAD!

All of these particular girls shared a cabin together for the week – except the oldest of them…she was in charge of a cabin of younger teens. On the last night of camp, this group of five girls decided that they would really like to pull some pranks…play some tricks…be sneaky…something like that. A couple of them were thinking that this was their last year for getting to be a camper, as they will be graduating high school next year. So, after everyone in the camp had been asleep for about an hour, they snuck out of their cabins and met up to plan their schemes (with TP and whipped cream in hand.)

They just couldn’t help themselves though…they did everything so correctly! Earlier in the evening, they actually asked permission from the camp pastor if they could get up late and do some “stuff." And then, after they had snuck out of their cabins – guess what they did first? They went to see the night watchman and get permission from him, also! Strike one at being “bad."

After they gained all this permission to be “naughty," they decided it was time to TP something. But, they kept thinking that they really didn’t want to make a big mess for someone to have to clean up. Thus, they decided they would wind it into the volleyball net and write something. But, these girls have very few “four letter words” in their vocabulary. After much contemplation, they decided to write “ENCOURAGE” across the volleyball net in toilet paper…that was a big theme we had tried to teach the campers that week. Strike two at being bad.

I have to insert here that these girls were video taping everything they did – for evidence, I guess? Who knows, but anyway, next they wanted to video themselves playing a trick on someone with the whipped cream they were carrying around.

Could they squirt it all over some sleeping camper’s pillow? Perhaps…but when the camper came to, with whipped cream all over their face, they’d probably scream and wake up half the camp. Not a good thing, our nice pranksters decided. So, in order to avoid the camp-wakening scream, they decided they would just have to stage the whole thing themselves, for the sake of the video. One of our five lay on an empty bed in an empty cabin, pretending to be asleep. The girls covered her hands in whipped cream, and then gently tickled her nose. She reached up and wiped at her face, of course getting whipped cream all over it. Looked real enough on the video to be considered a “prank," without the accompanying loud scream! Strike three – you’re out, girls.

You may have struck out at being naughty, young ladies, but your actions “encouraged” me and many others. Thank you for being so dog gone good. I wish our world was full of more teens like you…or at least, I wish our media would tell us more about the ones like you, and less about the disobedient and disrespectful ones.