I didn’t know this until I became an elementary camp counselor.

If a kid drinks juice at breakfast, she has to go to the bathroom before chapel. If a kid takes a drink from the fountain on the way to chapel, she has to go to the bathroom before cabin clean up. If a kid drinks milk at lunch, she has to go to the bathroom before rest hour. If a kid drinks pop at canteen, she has to go to the bathroom before afternoon activities. If a kid accidentally swallows a mouthful of lake water, she has to go to the bathroom before supper. If a kid drinks something at supper, she has to go to the bathroom before the evening program. If a kid drinks milk with her S’Mores, she has to go to the bathroom before bedtime.

Expect to be waken up at three in the morning to take her to the bathroom. Expect to be asked five times during the evening program if she can go to the bathroom. Expect to stop at the bathroom on the way down to the lake. Expect to hear the words, "Where’s my gimp? Oh, I bet I left it in the bathroom."

Elementary campers spend half their camp lives going to the bathroom. That’s why they are so messy by the time camp ends, because everyone goes in there at least twenty times a day. There should be a day group activity called bathroom time. Instead of rest hour, we should have bathroom hour. Not all campers are like this. Some fare very well and don’t have a bathroom card to go with their canteen card. But others……………

There was one camper in particular that I remember. I have two stories about her which I will now share with you, but first why don’t you go to the restroom.

One thing I didn’t expect to do on a nature hike was teach a kid how to use the woods as a restroom. That wasn’t the most pleasant camp experience I’ve ever had.

I told all the girls to use the restroom before we left for our nature hike. I was an experienced sophomore counselor and knew that visiting the potty room before the hike was a necessity. One girl refused, though. I told her to try even if she didn’t think she had to use the bathroom, but no, no, no, she assured me, she didn’t have to go.

So we set off. The nature walk went great for about ten minutes. Then this camper who had sworn up and down that there was not a drop of urine in her body decided that she had to go. Bad. She began hopping around saying, "I have to go to the bathroom! I have to go to the bathroom!" This wasn’t so annoying for the first five minutes. The second five minutes she was pushing it.

I told her that she had two choices: a) keep her predicament to herself or b) pee in the woods. That’s how I said it. Pee in the woods. I put things in simple, ten-year-old terms.

It didn’t work. She declared that peeing in the woods was gross, disgusting, and icky, and she wasn’t going to do it. So I said, "Fine. Then don’t say anything about having to go to the bathroom."

I would have let her shriek and giggle her way through the woods if she wasn’t interfering with the other campers’ good time. It’s hard to see the beauty of nature with someone going, "I have to go to the bathroom! I have to go to the bathroom!" right next to you.

We walked for about thirty seconds in silence. Then the, "I have to go to the bathroom!" business started up again.

"Do you want to go right here?" I asked.

I thought she’d protest violently at my ‘gross, disgusting, and icky’ suggestion, but she must have had to go very badly because she said, "Yeah."

"Go ahead."

"I don’t know how."

I had never gone to the bathroom in the woods before. I had always gone before when my counselors told me to. But I pretended like I was the expert on urinating in the woods, and told her what to do.

She crouched down, and her whole body disappeared behind a bush. But we could still hear her:

"This is so gross! Ew! I can’t believe I’m doing this! Oh, yuck, my shoe! I’m never wearing these shoes again!"

"Your shoes are rubber," I told her. "Just wash it off."

"No! I’m not going to wear peed-on shoes. I’m never wearing these shoes again!"

Then for the rest of the nature walk she said, "I don’t have to go to the bathroom! I don’t have to go to the bathroom!"

I was just her day group counselor. I don’t know how her personal counselor kept her sanity that week.

The same girl decided half way through Dean Virginia’s mission program that she had to go. I knew that she had gone to the bathroom before it, because I made her. I marched her (and the other girls who had to go) to the bathroom and took the stall next to hers. I heard her going next to me. I heard it. And she hadn’t had anything else to drink since then.

I knew that she didn’t have to go, at least not as badly as she said. She only wanted to leave to waste time. So I said, "No, you may not go the bathroom. Wait until Dean Virginia is done talking."

Well, she did not like my decision, and repeatedly kicked the pew in front of her thinking I’d give in and let her go to the bathroom. I told her to stop it. She said she had to go to the bathroom. I let her know that I was on to her little scheme and that I knew she didn’t really have to go to the bathroom.

"But I do have to go. Really bad!"

If I had been a first time counselor, I would have given in. But I did not. I made her sit in that pew and listen to Dean Virginia’s speech. I was pretty proud of myself, too, especially afterwards when she headed straight for the Nuke ‘Em court.

"Don’t you have to go to the bathroom?" I asked.

"Oh," she said and looked at me for a long time. "I don’t have to go anymore."

The bladder fairy must have paid her a visit and given her one from the time she complained in chapel to the Nuke ‘Em game directly afterwards.

This particular camper’s name came up when I was talking to Jeremy about some of the kids. He said she was a cool little kid and a sweetheart. He obviously has not seen her bathroom side.