I was reading a post about school camps on The Spin Starts Here (congratulations to Caz and the Hack on their new baby girl!), where the author asked people to share their crappy school camp experiences.

Mine was something I hadn’t actually thought about since it happened, but boy, the question raised one of the most helish camp experiences ever. But most of it was to do with my complete moron of a father. So, here’s what I commented (partly because I think its interesting and partly because I cannot be arsed actually writing a full post):

I had a pretty shitty camp experience.

My Year 7 class (primary school in WA) did not get a traditional “school camp” venue, with beds and dorms and stuff. Instead, my teacher had the great idea to let her entire Year 7 class camp on her bush property for a week.

We needed to provide our own tents etc, and our parents would give us money and we’d all go out and do a bunch of shopping to last us the week.

Anyway, the morning we left for camp, my dad had “borrowed from a friend” a tent for me to use. Now, my dad being slightly left of centre, did not seem to consider the potential for humiliation, because, he borrowed a FUCKING TEEPEE. Much ridicule ensued. I then had to share the tent with my three friends, whom I had assured I would have a tent. They bullied me all week until I ended up going and sleeping in someone else’s tent.

It gets worse. Someone in the class had been sneaking into peoples tents and stealing food. We never found out who it was, but, given that the girls had been bullying me for 3 days thus far for the tent experience (and rightly so, IMO), it shouldn’t surprise you that they blamed me. I had been sitting quietly in my “tent” reading a book one afternoon, and they were off doing something else. I started to get hungry so I grabbed a biscuit. No sooner had it hit my lips than they came in, blamed me for stealing the food, and told the teacher I had. I swear I hadn’t. lol.

So, that week really couldn’t end quickly enough. Being made fun of and hanging out on my own for a whole week really wasn’t my idea of fun.

Now, share yours.