Sleepover from Hell
Last Saturday Maverick and I went on what at first looked to be a cool sleepover. We were going to spend the night at the Genesse Country Museum, which is a local historic village set in the early 1800s. There's old homes and buildings all from the area and during the day you've got people in period costume running the village like it would have been back then. Overall very cool.
Well, I should have figured that hanging out with a dozen 10 year olds at night might not be a good thing. And truthfully, it might not have been so bad if not for one scout in Maverick's den, whom we'll refer to as PIMA. He's one of those kids that you just want to smack after hanging with him just a few minutes.
We began with a nature hike to earn badges. We were looking at different kinds of trees and plants. Now, mind you, we started at about 6:30 and knew it was going to take about 2 hours so we were anticipating walking in the dark at some point. Right from the begining PIMA holding up the group, asking questions totally unrelated to the topics the guide was discussing, not following rules, and giving stupid, ridiculous answers to the questions the guide asked the boys. All these distractions just served to slow us down and make the walk go slower. Once it got dark, PIMA thought it would be fun to jump on other kids backs, try and scare other kids, and other annoying such tactics.
To make it even more difficult, PIMA's mom doesn't do sleepovers, so the den leader had to take responsibility for him. He's a pretty easy going guy normally, but by the end of the walk, he was pretty frustrated with him. After the nature walk, we had a snack, then a campfire with smores. The dad's kind of japped out at this point. Someone ordered a sheet pizza, so while the den leader and a couple of other parents were at the camp fire, I and another group of dads hung out and ate pizza and wings without the kids. It was very cool. However, the den leader came in at one point and wasn't sounding too happy, so we went out to make sure the kids weren't trying to burn the place down.
After campfire was a night-time walk through the village. Normally that would have been cool, but of course PIMA was being loud and obnoxious and made the walk less fun than it could be. Bedtime was more of the same. I could hear him talking with the other kids instead of going to sleep. Mind you, it was tough enough sleeping there as it was. For some reason they wouldn't let us bring air matresses so I got to sleep on a mat, which wasn't too comfortable. I woke up every so often when an arm or leg fell asleep and I had to roll over.
The next morning, the first thing I hear after waking up is PIMA coming up and telling me how Maverick got up in the middle of the night and was causing trouble. Skeptical of his version of the story, I asked Maverick what happened. He said he and another boy got up to use the bathroom about 1 am and talked in the bathroom for a little bit then checked out the turtles in the room below where we slept before coming back to bed. Causing trouble indeed.
We took off after breakfast and actually made it to church on time. That was definately an evening to crash early, which I did. Over all we did have a pretty good time, but that boy sure put a black cloud on the event. Our next sleepover is in about 2 weeks at the Buffalo Naval Museum. I've been told the ship we're sleeping on (the USS Sullivans) is haunted, so it should be interesting. Grasshopper is going on this one as well so the boys can see what it was like when Dad lived on a ship. I'm sure I'll post details after the event.
Well, I should have figured that hanging out with a dozen 10 year olds at night might not be a good thing. And truthfully, it might not have been so bad if not for one scout in Maverick's den, whom we'll refer to as PIMA. He's one of those kids that you just want to smack after hanging with him just a few minutes.
We began with a nature hike to earn badges. We were looking at different kinds of trees and plants. Now, mind you, we started at about 6:30 and knew it was going to take about 2 hours so we were anticipating walking in the dark at some point. Right from the begining PIMA holding up the group, asking questions totally unrelated to the topics the guide was discussing, not following rules, and giving stupid, ridiculous answers to the questions the guide asked the boys. All these distractions just served to slow us down and make the walk go slower. Once it got dark, PIMA thought it would be fun to jump on other kids backs, try and scare other kids, and other annoying such tactics.
To make it even more difficult, PIMA's mom doesn't do sleepovers, so the den leader had to take responsibility for him. He's a pretty easy going guy normally, but by the end of the walk, he was pretty frustrated with him. After the nature walk, we had a snack, then a campfire with smores. The dad's kind of japped out at this point. Someone ordered a sheet pizza, so while the den leader and a couple of other parents were at the camp fire, I and another group of dads hung out and ate pizza and wings without the kids. It was very cool. However, the den leader came in at one point and wasn't sounding too happy, so we went out to make sure the kids weren't trying to burn the place down.
After campfire was a night-time walk through the village. Normally that would have been cool, but of course PIMA was being loud and obnoxious and made the walk less fun than it could be. Bedtime was more of the same. I could hear him talking with the other kids instead of going to sleep. Mind you, it was tough enough sleeping there as it was. For some reason they wouldn't let us bring air matresses so I got to sleep on a mat, which wasn't too comfortable. I woke up every so often when an arm or leg fell asleep and I had to roll over.
The next morning, the first thing I hear after waking up is PIMA coming up and telling me how Maverick got up in the middle of the night and was causing trouble. Skeptical of his version of the story, I asked Maverick what happened. He said he and another boy got up to use the bathroom about 1 am and talked in the bathroom for a little bit then checked out the turtles in the room below where we slept before coming back to bed. Causing trouble indeed.
We took off after breakfast and actually made it to church on time. That was definately an evening to crash early, which I did. Over all we did have a pretty good time, but that boy sure put a black cloud on the event. Our next sleepover is in about 2 weeks at the Buffalo Naval Museum. I've been told the ship we're sleeping on (the USS Sullivans) is haunted, so it should be interesting. Grasshopper is going on this one as well so the boys can see what it was like when Dad lived on a ship. I'm sure I'll post details after the event.
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