The Miss Lifeguard Lady Thing
Imagine that you are a ten-year-old kid and are thrust into a place where you know nobody. You learn, in the matter of two hours, the names of four campers in your small group, five others in the cabin, five more in your day group, three personal counselors, a whole mess of other counselors, the cook, the assistant cook, all the kitchen staff, the secretary, the maintenance crew, two lifeguards, the manager, the manager’s family, a couple assistant managers, the song leaders, the deans, and all nine members (past and present) of KISS.
You’re bound to forget someone’s name. It’s just going to happen. Can’t be avoided, no matter how many learn-everybody’s-name games your counselor makes you play.
Many of the campers make up their own system of learning names. They don’t actually learn everybody’s name. It’s easy when the camp has one male and one female dean. Then the kids can refer to them as ‘the guy dean’ and ‘the girl dean.’ Makes it simple.
My kids knew the names of the staff. I made sure of that. When we made a banner for them, I wanted each of my kids to know who the cool people they created it for were. They learned pretty well. By Wednesday, my five campers could have done the staff introduction that Gordon did the first day. I was very proud of them.
Some of the other campers weren’t as educated. I’m sure they had names in the form of descriptions for each person they didn’t know, but the one I found the funniest was what they would call Kelly when they couldn’t recall her name.
"Hey, Miss Lifeguard Lady, can I go in the water now!"
"That’s a cool swim suit, Miss Lifeguard Lady!"
"Miss Lifeguard Lady, I want to go boating!"
"Miss Lifeguard Lady, Bobby’s running on the dock!"
"Abby’s splashing me, Miss Lifeguard Lady. Make her stop!"
It sounded so funny as if Kelly didn’t have a real name. At least they knew it was her they were talking about when they said, "Miss Lifeguard Lady!" My campers called me Kristy because that was the name of their counselor the year before. I think that sometimes they actually thought I was this Kristy person. That or they were under the impression that every Elementary 3 counselor’s name is Kristy.
"I’d like to be a counselor this year."
"Okay, just fill out this form."
"Sure."
"Uh, wait. What did you just put on the line after Name?"
"Amber."
"Your name isn’t Kristy?"
"No."
"I don’t think we need any more help that week, but thanks for offering."
You know what would really confuse a camper? Go to camp one year and get them to learn your name. Then during the winter have it legally changed.
"Hi, there little Joanie. How was fifth grade?"
"Great, Allyson. Can you start my gimp?"
"No, no, my name isn’t Allyson. It’s Kristy."
"It was Allyson last year."
"I know. Now it’s Kristy."
"What?"
"Yeah, and Miss Lifeguard Lady changed her name to Miss Craft Counselor Lady."
"What?!?!"
The poor kid would go running to the dean. "Dean Doe! Dean Doe! I don’t know anybody’s name!"
"Don’t worry about it. I’ll straighten this all out. And, by the way, my name is Dean Spade."
"Mommy, I want to go home!"
"Fine, dear, but could you call me Mom?"