Cougar Camp

I never went to camp when I was little. Well, I did go to a camp for one Summer as the camp nurse’s daughter. I spent a Summer in Saco, Maine with my Mom and my two siblings.

My brother, Jack, was old enough to be a camper; however, Julie and I were only old enough to be the “nurse’s daughters.” When I got older, I wondered why on Earth my mother packed us all up for a Summer and left my Dad at home. So, one day I was bold, and I had asked my Mom about “that Summer.”

She simply said, “That was the Summer I thought about leaving your father.” I said nothing. In her response, enough was said.

If truth be told, it wasn’t a bad Summer at all. I liked eating in the dining hall, drinking “bug juice,” (a dumbed down name for Kool-Aid), and buying candy with a punch card at the camp store. It was also the Summer I learned about the monthly curse when a young girl came into the infirmary yelling in pain.

I said to my Mom, “Oh, no. She’s going to die!” My Mom said, “Oh, no. She just has cramps!” Being a nurse and one not to shy away from anything medical, my Mom whipped out a book on menstruation the next day holding Julie and I as her captive audience for an hour or so as she flipped through the pages and asked every two pages or so, “Do you have any questions?”

I was a bit horrified by the whole puberty thing I have to say. Julie and I had no questions. But, in hindsight, I’m glad my Mom was who she was especially in that regard; kids need to know these things, and, in a perfect world, their parents need to be the ones to tell them these things and be there for them when they do have questions.

Anyway, I sit next to a lovely young man at work; he’s only 22 years old, yet he’s smart, polite, self-confident, family-oriented, compassionate, and I think he’s going to be a Vice President in the corporate world by the time he's 26. Sometimes I want to say to him, “Your parents have done so well!” but I restrain myself, because like with Nathan on Facebook, I don't want to be deleted via the Internet or via cube space. The other day, he muttered to himself, “If it keeps raining, maybe the running camp I coach will be cancelled.”

Being an avid runner, I asked, “You coach a running camp?” He said, “Yeah,” and then he popped into my office and then told me to Google the camp. He then said, “Here’s what we do,” and handed me a sheet that broke down two hours worth of camp by minute intervals during which all sorts of sprints and drills would occur.

When I saw the word “suicide” next to one drill, I laughed. If there was ultimate fighting, then this must be ultimate running. I then said to myself, “Two hours of running around like this? That sounds like fun.”

I asked, “Is this just for kids?” He said, “Well, it’s for ages 10 to about 20.” I said, “Oh.” He then hesitated for at least 5 seconds, and it was not like him to have immediate words, and said, “Well, when we had our meeting the other night, we were thinking of starting a cougar camp.”

I laughed out loud. I said not knowing what to say, “I thought cougar camp was sitting by the pool drinking Cosmopolitans! Err, well, when you do that, let me know.” He looked outside (the storm had passed) and said, “Well, I’ve got to get going.”

I sat there still laughing. Then I thought, “Does he think I’m old?” And then I thought, “Does he think I’m a cougar?”

Up until then, I always thought a cougar was an older woman who looked like a younger woman. I googled “cougar.” Apparently, I was wrong.

I told a friend about the fact that someone had suggested I attend a Cougar Camp. He said I should knee this young man in the groin for such an insult. It was funny, but I wanted to hug the young man for thinking I was an older woman who looked like a younger woman.

My friend was adamant about the fact that I was insulted. But, I knew this young man well, and I knew he’d never insult me. As I read the definitions in context of young men, I knew the only young man I was ever after was the one I was related to, who was my son; and, I was only after him to save more money, clean his room, cut his hair at least every three months, and get the oil changed in his (MY) car every three months.

I read further and wanted to think I was someone who had her “shit together,” but, alas, I wasn’t. I had actually been trying to get my shit together for the last seven years. Obviously, I was only a very slow “shit together” cougar. Perhaps I was not even a cougar but a tortoise!

If truth be told, my friend’s reaction made me feel a bit badly but only according to definition. In my heart, I knew my cube neighbor meant no harm. I would strongly consider attending cougar camp if it ever was open to enrollment, because I had already taken my definition of "cougar" and who I really was to heart. ♥