The "Spring A Leak!" Thing*
The first year I was a counselor there was this very intimidating counselor there who led the songs. This goes along with The Clapping Song Thing, and it is my theory that this experience traumatized some people into not being able to clap.
No names will be mentioned to protect the innocent. The song leader isn’t the innocent. I am. This counselor would probably hire the mafia to take me out if they ever found out I wrote about them in this. I would have to get a bodyguard. I am not exaggerating.
Anyway, when the kids would get loud this person would scream at the top of their lungs, "Spring a leak!" The campers were then supposed to go, "Shhhhhhhh!" It was supposed to sound like a leak springing.
It sounded like utter chaos. When the kids said, "Shhhhhhhhh!" they were louder than they were in the first place which really defeated the purpose of getting them to be quiet.
I would have mentioned this to the counselor who was obsessed with springing a leak, but this person was definitely not the president of my fan club. To this day, I honestly do not know what I did to make them not like me. Maybe I took the last of their Pops, and they gotta have their Pops.
To me, "Shhhhhhhhh!" does not sound like a leak. Have you ever had a leak? We had a leak in our roof last winter, and it sounded like this: drip, drip, drip. But I suppose, "Spring a leak!" "Drip, drip, drip!" isn’t as effective as the shushing sound.
It was a good idea at first, but by the end of the week it got way out of hand. A pin would drop and up would pop this counselor. "Spring a leak!" Who was supposed to say, "Shhhhhhhh!" then? The pin? A bird would chirp. "Spring a leak!" Would the bird be expected to say, "Shhhhhhhh!"?
Just once I would have liked to see a person walk right up to the counselor and say, "No. No, I will not spring a leak. What do I look like, a rusty, old sink pipe?" But nobody did. I certainly didn’t, because I was very afraid of this song leading counselor.
To use the words of Forrest Gump, "And that’s all I have to say about that."
*Heather just told me yesterday (8/9/97) that the whole spring a leak thing has to do with a balloon leaking, not someone’s roof. I was unaware of this. Now you see, you learn something every single time you go to camp.