Hiding in Plain Sight

A few weeks ago, M and I told our sons that they would be going to Boy Scout winter camp this year. Both of them have said that they want to earn their Eagle rank long term. Earning an Eagle rank requires lots of service hours, a big service project, and lots of merit badges. About half those badges are non-discretionary "Eagle-required" badges on subjects like "Citizenship in the Community" and "Personal Management."

My husband and I have been, and will continue to be, very supportive of our kids' scout activities. But sometimes support feels more like, well, nagging. Citizenship/Community for our older son required nearly daily "support" all summer. Occasionally this "support" culminated in screaming fits of exasperation. As in, "This is the third day in a row you've told me you didn't have time! How could you not have 10 minutes to google 'suburban alligator control'!" The worst was the 3 weeks of "support" it took to get him to actually talk to someone in the Texas Parks and Wildlife department about alligator control -- the absolute last requirement on that badge. While I remember my own teenage mortification at the idea of talking to a grownup, I was nevertheless impatient with his plight.

So I'm a bit weary of "support." And this winter camp looked like an exceptional opportunity. Large attendance (something like a thousand kids) and staffed by parents and scout leaders who share our interest in knocking out those badges. In a 4 day camp, they typically earn 4 to 6 badges. And with the large numbers of boys, they offer just about every merit badge.


We decided to trade in our summer badgering routine for a few relatively short weeks of acute whining. Good trade-off so far. The boys even wrote a highly entertaining essay on Why Winter Camp Sucks.

From the opening paragraph:

You get pneumonia from being in an overly cold environment, like winter camp. It
is one of the most horrible diseases ever. Frostbite can cause fingers, toes,
noses, etcetera to fall off. This could make it quite hard to play the guitar or
trumpet. And it would suck.

They tried pushig every real and perceived parental button -- here's one of the more entertaining attempts:

With the $280 bucks that you save from not sending us to winter camp, you could buy your own x-box 360 and the Tiger Woods golf game.

There was a comment about starving children in Africa -- a cliche I thought had passed with my childhood.

Or try this one:

Grandma and Grandpa won’t get to see us over the break and they will be sad because their only grand children are at some sucky winter camp in crappy little tents, trying to stay warm and not die of pneumonia or frostbite of the brain.

And the coup de grace:

There is no caffeine.
I suffer from caffeine withdrawal and there is no caffeine at camp.
There is no eggnog.
Eric suffers from chronic eggnog withdrawal.

If I could quit laughing I might feel bad for them.

But what does this have to do with knitting, you ask?

Lest anyone accuse me of not being sympathetic to my sons' miserable situation, I cast on a new pair of socks last night. Winter Camp Sucks socks for the elder son. Worked in DK-weight merino on size 3 needles, they should keep his toes from freezing off.



I knit the swatch as he sat across the kitchen table from me, doing his Chemistry homework. He never asked. He showed me a magic trick while I was doing the ribbing. He might have looked at my pattern notes with the heading "WCS socks." But I'm sure he didn't. And I'm sure he won't look at this blog either. And the funnest part will be that since our feet are the same length I can try them on my own feet instead of his, and he will just assume the socks are for me. They will be a surprise Christmas present that he's seen a hundred times but not noticed.

If he's lucky I'll have enough yarn leftover to knit him a Winter Camp Sucks hat.