"Ok. So it’s the last week of June.
Otherwise known as the time of year when parents across the country drive to various makeshift bus stops, hug their kids goodbye while hiding behind dark glasses, release them to make the climb up onto the air conditioned chartered buses that ironically advertise free wi-fi, then wave maniacally at their shadows — barely visible behind the blackened windows — yelling “goodbye!” and “I love you!” and “you better write!” until the very last bus has inched out onto the highway and disappeared from sight.
Only then will they be free to swipe away the stray tears, sigh at the anti-climactic-ness of it all, and then celebrate their long-awaited Summer! Of! Freedom! by running home to glue themselves to their computer screens and hit the refresh button every two seconds while guzzling glass after glass of wine.
If you have to ask why these parents are engaging in this type of behavior then you’ve clearly never sent your kid off to sleepaway camp for seven weeks. And if your jaw just dropped at the phrase “seven weeks,” then you are clearly not from the Northeast.
Because the reason they — ok, let’s be honest here, we — attach ourselves to our iPads and our laptops and any other device that will let us log onto Bunk1 or CampMinder, is because we are desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of our kids when our respective camp websites start posting THE PICTURES.
If there was ever a phrase worthy of utilizing the All Caps button it’s that one. Trust me.
Because only when we see that first grainy image of our child jumping into the lake… or swinging a bat… or kicking a ball.. or getting a piggyback ride from some random nineteen-year-old who they may or may not have just met two minutes ago… Only then can we breathe a collective sigh of relief, fork over the $1.69 to download the high-res image, and then just finally chill out and relax.
At least for five seconds until we hit the refresh button again.
Anybody else here see the irony of confiscating your kids electronics and sending them off into a wi-fi free zone, only to spend the summer obsessed with electronics yourself? Even as I type this on my ipad, I have the camp website open on my MacBook.
But these are our children we are talking about here.
So — and stop me if any of this sounds familiar — we spend our entire summer waiting for THE PICTURES. Talking about THE PICTURES. And — full disclosure — over-analyzing every single little detail about the pictures.
Wait. Why isn’t my kid smiling? Is that a smile? And why is he standing all the way over there on the end? Why isn’t he in the middle like that kid there with all the freckles? Who is that kid with all the freckles anyway? I bet he’s mean. He looks mean. How come everyone in the bunk is holding hands and my daughter is holding a water bottle? Does she not have any friends? Who’s bathing suit is she wearing? She looks skinny. Is she eating? She better be eating! And is that a sunburn?
Um. Guilty as charged. Last summer I made myself crazy studying the pictures. I know it sounds insane. Like, really insane. And it so is.
But it’s also really hard not to become just a little certifiable when you’re stuck at home sending one-way emails, and the only clue you have to child’s well-being is an image that’s left you feeling at best unsettled and at worst suicidal and why didn’t you just sneak that damn cell phone into you kid’s laundry bag when you had the chance?
But here’s the thing. I learned the hard way that the pictures don’t always tell the story of what is really going on at camp. Like, AT ALL.
Which is why I love this cartoon.
And why I am now going to tell you a story.
Are you ready? Here we go.
One day last summer about 50 pics went up on the camp website of my daughter’s bunk at the waterfront. She was not in a single one of them.
Not ONE.
True story.
So I start immediately freaking out. Judge away but you know you’d do it too. Because here are all these girls smiling and laughing and jumping in the air holding hands. And where is my kid?
So then a week later we’re up at camp for Visiting Day. And we go on a family boat ride. And my daughter starts to tell a story. About how there was this one day last week when her bunk and another bunk in her division went to the waterfront together. And about how she got to go out in a canoe with two girls from another bunk. And about how they went out in that canoe, and then they got stuck in the mud. And they couldn’t get out. And so they had to wait for one of the lifeguards to come rescue them. And it was, like, so totally awesome! Like, so funny that they all laughed so hard they literally peed in their bathing suits.
And so after visiting day I went home, swallowed about a billion milligrams of Valium and then pulled up that set of waterfront pics again on the camp website. And I zoomed in on them on my iPad (great trick, btw… remember it). And there she was — my kid, my heart, my home — way off in the background. In a canoe. Stuck on the mud. With two other girls. Laughing her freaking ass off.
And so the moral of the story is:
You know what’s coming, don’t you?
Step away from the computer.
Just step away.
At least until they upload the next batch of pictures.
Refresh.
Refresh."
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