Paint Explosion

I’ve been teaching all sorts of camps for years and years.  It is always amazing the crazy shit that happens.  Kids are wacko, but I guess to be a camp director (even part-time) you have to also be wacko.  I tried a new product today…neon paint pens.  I wanted something easy to use when we colored our plastic sun catchers.  The advertisement indicated the following:  “EASY, WASHABLE, VERY LITTLE MESS PAINT!  GREAT FOR ALL AGES!!!  The reality, however, was totally different.  Upon handing out the markers, it became apparent that shit was going south.  The “WASHABLE, VERY LITTLE MESS PAINT” appeared to be industrial, as permanent as Stonehenge shiny paint.  Not only that, the paint came in marker-like dispensers that began exploding upon contact with children.  In less than five minutes the classroom (including walls, tabletops, floor and cabinets) and children (including faces, hands, hair and clothing) looked like a room full of epileptics had been turned loose and locked inside with strobe lights and fully loaded paint guns.  My teaching assistant and I went into full-on Apocalypse Now mode.  There were children, sun catchers, paint, Clorox spray, paper towels and markers flying everywhere.  There is a very good chance we used a five-year supply of paper towels in less than 15 minutes.  Once the entire debacle was completed, we both decided that, just like letting the boys pee outside at the botanical gardens, we would never speak of this again…and then I blogged about it.

I also got this picture.  That is me, waiting for cars to come and drop off their kids to camp.  Contrary to the picture, I do, in fact, have legs.