Now that it's July and all the kiddos, who I hate, children are the anti- Christ, are getting sent off to summer camp, it inspired me to come up with my top 10 moments I remember from summer camp. Or as I like to call it Cripple Camp. Yes from the summer of either '92 or '93, to the summer of '03, my lovely parents sent me every summer for one to two weeks to a wonderful summer camp in Hebron, CT. It was called Camp Hemlocks, but I have many names for it... Camp Hellocks, Camp Shitlocks, and my personal favorite Camp Smells Like Urine, because honest to god it did, it really did! I mean I don't blame my parents I was an annoying kid, and that was their only chance to get rid of me for days at a time every year. But the best part was it wasn't just a camp for physically diabled kids, but mentally disabled kids as well! It basically means I felt like I was rolling around a psych ward every summer. Yes I was a big cry baby most of the years I went, and cried and bitched and moaned everyday I was there until I went home.. Yes I get the irony. I would of loved to get away from everyone for a week or two now, and I definitely wouldn't be upset screaming and crying the whole way there and while I was there the times changed I guess!
Anyway, here are the top 10 stories I remember from Cripple Camp:
10- Paranoid Bobble Head- This one is first because it's not that interesting, but it was my inspiration for my comedy name. You see my real name is Robert Alan Held, and I love to collect bobble heads, and I even look like a life sized one, so that's why I go by Bob Al Held on stage. Get it? It sounds like Bobble Head. Anyway, growing up at cripple camp I had a fellow crippled friend there also named Robert. He would always get scared that we would get caught doing something bad, not that my friend or I ever did, so everybody started calling him "Paranoid Bobble Head" plus he, like most cripples, looked like a human bobble head.
9-Kid came out of bathroom with pants around ankles- Luckily I was facing towards the pond when this happened. But I heard plenty of screams. It is as self explanatory as it sounds. Mentally disabled kid went into the bathroom with pants and underwear on and came out with nothing on. Plus, I can't remember or not to make it more interesting though, he may or may not have had the poopy all over himself. It was almost as bad as the time I got stuck behind the kid that literally shit his shorts. Or the time I had to sleep in the bed next to this 500lbs man child who smelled like an elephant if he didn't bathe 3 times a day. Imagine sleeping next to that for 2 weeks!
8- My forbidden counselor love- This one is boring, but it's what made my last few years at cripple camp tolerable. Yeah I'm pretty sure all the guys I was friends with loved her too, but she went out of her way to be nice and talk to me, when I pretty much sat in the corner and ignored everyone with a scowl on my face. Similar to today, but whatever, she was awesome and hot and I had the biggest crush on her. Because of her I learned how to talk to girls and whatever shes married with 8 kids now so I don't care if she reads this!
7- Spraying cheese wiz all over the boat dock- Things get boring during cripple camp... See for you youngsters reading this, when I went to cripple camp there was no tv, internet, smartphones, or wifi, so you had to be creative and come up with ways to entertain yourself! Most of the camp activities were designed for mentally disabled people around the age of 8, so by the time I hit 12 I was over going to them. Plus, it would have required me to socialize and try to make friends. Gross, who wants to do that? One day when my friend and I were bored we found a bottle of spray cheese just randomly sitting on a table. Being the geniuses that we were, we decided to steal it and spray it all over the boating and fishing dock and storage shed.
6- Stealing Pringles- I've always been a fat kid, this just proves it! You see the food at cripple camp was bad! We are talking prison/hospital/school cafeteria/ airplane bad! And you weren't allowed to leave the camp while you were there. They were too cheap and mean to order good food, even once while you were there, so I went to bed and woke up many nights starving there... for you anorexics out there. Cripple camp is a great way to loose weight! Similar to the cheese wiz story, one day someone left a full can of pringles just sitting on a table, so naturally after rolling by several times to make sure no one was looking I swiped them and hid them in one of the empty drawers in my room I was staying in that summer. Needless to say I enjoyed pigging out on them!
5- Ee-AHH-oooh-kid- Yes I am going to hell! Legit me and everyone else at this camp could not understand a thing he said. So that was a fucked up nickname some people thought of, and no I was not one of them. Somehow he was there every summer I was though! The best story I remember about him was one day I could hear him screaming and gasping for breath like a mile away, and all of a sudden he came running by me and then about 5 seconds later 3 or 4 kids in power wheelchairs were driving behind him trying to catch up with him to beat him up. Still don't know what that was about til this day, but I would love to know!
4- My roommate jacking it- I occasionally tell this story during my comedy routines, but here's the whole story. Every summer when your parents fill out the application to wheel your ass to cripple camp, the camp asks who you want your roommates to be for a week or two. To their credit for the most part you got to room with who you wanted to. The problem however was me being the cry baby asshole I was I did not have a lot of friends at cripple camp, so some years I didn't know anybody going. Because of this I would get stuck in the room with all the other rejects who had no friends. This particular year, I got stuck with a kid who couldn't talk, drooled on himself, and always was holding a stuffed caterpillar. Did I mention that none of this ever stopped him from trying to play with himself. Literally, 5 times a day I would have to hear counselors with European accents yell, SCOTT STOP TOUCHING YOURSELF!! He was talented though. He would do it with one hand and hold the caterpillar with the other. It got so bad that the counselors contemplated rolling him into the bathroom, locking the door, and letting him have at it! I shit you not!!! Fucked up but most of the counselors were from foreign countries because they would trick them into coming here by saying they would get to see America! If by America they mean rural Connecticut, then yeah, they got to explore America all while helping lovely cripples like myself! Also, they were considered "Volunteers" so the camp would use this to justify paying them less than minimum wage.
3- Retarded kid broke my ankle-The good news is this was the only time I ever got to leave camp before the end of the time I was supposed to be there. The bad part was it was because I thought I broke my ankle! Also, I had to go there in a van that makes my current van look like a Mercedes. It was literally just to go get X-Rays and nothing else! It started out well enough, back then I would put my foot plates up and let my feet hang. One time I went to back up and caught my foot between the foot plate and my wheel and twisted it really bad. It is as painful as it sounds, but being young and way less crippled then, it actually felt fine after a few days. Until I saw this huge mentally disabled kid beating up my friend who was also in a wheelchair. Being the loud mouth genius that I am,and trying to get the big kid to stop, I yelled " HEY RETARD WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" yes I know I deserved to get attacked, but in my defense I was around 10, and tried to help my friend. Needless to say he came running over and punt kicked my ankle that had just started to feel better. Did he get in trouble for any of this? Of course not!
2- Clown got beat up- I know no one is going to believe me, but i literally have nothing to do with this! And I have only heard of it second hand, and after it happened. Every summer cripple camp would have a carnival where you could play games and win prizes and deal with creepy ass clowns. Well one year I guess a group of cripples decided they didn't like the creepy clown volunteers, and decided to beat one of them up. I mean, I'm not sure how this went down, I mean literally I'm not sure, but it did, and all parents were notified and some kids even got banned from cripple camp for life after this. I just don't get how an able bodied person got beat up by a bunch of kids in wheelchairs? Just run! They cant keep up! or knock their hands off their controllers, turn the power off on their chairs and flip them into push mode and that's how you stop a rowdy gang of cripples!
1-That time I ran away- One year, I was either in middle or high school at this point, I decided I had enough of cripple camp and if my parents made me go that summer, I was going to roll to my uncles house who only lived a few towns away from the camp, and tell him I refused to stay at cripple camp! Being the stubborn asshole that I am, I tried to actually do it that summer. However, as I was rolling down the road and people were driving by they kept staring at me... I mean fuck I would too if I saw some cripple kid in a wheelchair just rolling along on the side of the road. Afraid that someone was going to call the camp and tell them I was rolling down the road literally, I got scared and turned back to go back to cripple camp. Did I mention that it had rained a lot before I did this? Well it did and my chair got stuck in the muddy wet grass on the side of the road. At this point I was panicking and didn't know what to do because I thought I was going to be stuck on the side of the road until someone noticed that I was missing, and at cripple camp that wouldn't have been until it was time for bed which was about 8 hours from then. Luckily someone driving by eventually pulled over and help me get unstuck... of course they asked if I was supposed to be out there and I lied and said yes! yeah, they didn't believe me and ratted me out to the camp.
Bonus- That time I locked that kid in a port-o- potty... You are welcome America I almost forgot! Anyway, my friends and I were in the woods with this really annoying kid who would not shut up or stop following us everywhere. While we were in the woods we somehow came across this nice smelly portable toilet... no idea why it was there. But, somehow we convinced this kid, ok he wasn't all there mentally, yes I know I'm going to hell, to roll his chair into the port-o-potty because Jay Z and Michael Jackson were in there waiting to talk to him. First of all, with the amount of kids Michael Jackson molested within his lifetime you should never go into the bathroom if he's in there. Second, I know this was mean but I was a stupid kid and this is a funny story! So yeah he rolled himself in there and then I barricaded my wheelchair in front of the door so he couldn't get out! He kept yelling, "HEY GUYS I DON"T SEE THEM IN HERE" and "IT SMELLS REALLY BAD IN HERE CAN YOU LET ME OUT NOW?!"
Hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I did writing it and remembering all the good times! Until next time... don't drink the water because the government puts LSD in it to control your thoughts!
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