verbatim: Visiting Day

Today was Visiting Day at Steph's camp! We never got to have a proper Visiting Day last year because of the rabies shots*, so this was our first time. (Her previous two years she stayed just one month; only two-monthers get to have Visiting Day.)

When I was a camper, we were not allowed to leave the camp property on Visiting Day. We all gathered in the tree-studded park, and our parents (and even our grandparents) came with picnic baskets and set out a lovely luncheon of all our favorite (kosher or kosher-ish) foods. Afterward we put on a show for them in the social hall, and then we just wandered around the camp and showed our parents where we swam, where we did arts & crafts, where we learned to play tennis. We met our friends' parents, and they met us.

Not anymore.

Now, we are allowed to—which means that we must—take our kids out of camp for the afternoon. Where do we go? The mall! My favorite destination! (Not!) Steph was very enthusiastic about the prospect of an afternoon spent having food-court pizza, shopping at Target for all her essentials (shampoo, hair clips, writing paper, disposable cameras, etc.), and then stopping at Barnes & Noble for a fresh supply of books and magazines. We also brought along her beloved cell phone, so she could reunite via text message with her friends from home—and with her camp friends, who also had their phones with them for the afternoon. "Talia and Rachel ran into each other at Panera!" Steph announced. She had just seen them both 15 minutes earlier.

Back at camp, I saw plenty of my old camp friends (there to visit their own kids, of course) and visited my signature scrawled on the ceiling of most of the cabins. Those were the days.

*Speaking of rabies shots: I got an email from a Verbatim reader/lurker, who awoke to the horror of a bat in her bedroom! Having learned from my awful experience, she called Animal Control, who came and captured the bat for testing. It was negative, so she didn't need to get the shots! My work here is done.