It has been said by many people that I am, in fact, an asshole. After careful consideration, I have decided to agree. I have made many attempts to not be, some more successful than others, but I think one of my lowest, most asshole-ish points was at Woodlore with a guy by the name of Brandon.

As one may have surmised by my previous stories, I am a Boy Scout. I have worked at numerous Boy Scout summer camps in my life, but since 2010, I have returned every year to a special camp called Woodlore Camping School. Officially, Woodlore is not really a camp. It is advertised as a leadership training and pioneering school for young boys. The staff is very selective, and each year every member is put through a rigorous grading process and must be sent an invitation in order to return the following year. This process usually allows the staff to keep each other in check and acts as a filter to weed out the members that would bring down the quality of instruction.

This system seems to work, and in my eleven years in scouting, I have not come across another leadership training program that provides the same level of in-depth instruction and experience that Woodlore provides. This drab analysis, however, does not mean that we were “all business”, and this story is about a particularly unbusinesslike prank on a particularly friendly staff member: Brandon.

Now Brandon was a hard worker. He was very considerate and poured all his effort into everything he did. He was the kind of guy who would ignore scouting regulations to provide the campers with a better understanding of how to be safe and work with certain tools. Case in point: Brandon was assigned to teach a blade safety course that involved teaching how to handle and sharpen knives. He happened to bring a wide selection of pocket and kitchen knives, as well as a 24″ machete. We all loved Brandon, but not only for his full force enthusiasm but also because he was the most gullible person on staff.

One fine morning at breakfast, we decided to play a little practical joke on Brandon. A senior staff member asked him to run down to the quartermaster to grab some “Shoreline.” Now to a gullible young man such as Brandon, “shoreline” may possibly sound like a special kind of rope, but to those in on the joke knew that the closest thing to “shoreline” was a fistful of sand from the lakeshore not twenty yards away from our campsite; An actual piece of “shoreline.”

However, being the ever helpful young man that he was, Brandon happily went up to the quartermaster to ask for some “shoreline.” He came back a few minutes later with the message that the quartermaster was, unfortunately, fresh out of “shoreline.” Our friend the QM had told the young staffer that he had used the last of the “shoreline” that morning.

We got a kick out of this so the following day, we decided to try again, this time with a different supply: a left-handed hammer.

“Brandon,” a staffer named Josh said, “I have a camper who’s left-handed and having a hard time with his right-handed hammer. Can you go up to the QM and ask for the left-handed hammer?”

Brandon, the ever-diligent scout, happily went up to the QM shack once more to ask again for a supply that was non-existent. The quartermaster, a good sport, pointed Brandon in the direction of another staff member, citing the sign-out sheet and showing him that he was not the last to have possession of the left-handed hammer. So Brandon went to this staffer to ask if he had the left-handed hammer. This staffer, in turn, directed him to another, and then another, and so on. This went on until he had been to nearly every staff member asking if they had seen the left-handed hammer. The problem was that we didn’t know where to point him when he had been to everyone. We convened that night to decide what to do, and we finally settled on a plan to put a staff member by the name of Basheer as the last point of reference for Brandon. It was frankly astonishing that he had not figured out our scheme by then, but we were determined to see how far this could go.

The following day, Brandon was finally referred to Basheer, and by then the plan was solid. Brandon, once again asked where he might find the fabled left-handed hammer.

“Well,” Basheer said “I had it the other day, but lost it. I think it was stolen by some staff-in-training and I thought I heard them talking about how they buried it under the shower pump. If I was you, I’d look there first.”

Well, I’ll be damned if he didn’t go off and look for that left-handed hammer under the shower pump, which, mind you, was located a good quarter mile down an isolated trail behind the staff-in-training campsite. He came back a little too soon and definitely hammerless claiming he was turned back by an adult. This, of course, would not do as the entire staff was invested at that point and, again, wanted to know how far this would go. Trying to keep straight faces, we decided to give him a little help. That night the quartermaster, who was very sympathetic to Brandon’s plight, loaned him a shovel and two volunteers went up with Brandon to excavate this fabled tool.

That afternoon, while Brandon was preparing for his excavation, a few staff members had actually gone up to the pump and buried an old hammer about three feet underneath the pump. When Brandon began digging, he was skeptical, but three feet later, his faith was restored. He had found the left-handed hammer.

The following morning before the daily formation, he proudly showed us his triumph. He waved it in front of the staff and explained to us the minute differences between the left-handed and right-handed hammers. We played along with the best poker faces we could muster, but this is not where Brandon’s story ends. Oh no.

Every day at formation we had five minutes devoted to “presentations” where members can present things that they made, or return lost items to their rightful owners at the price of a song or dance. When this time rolled around that fateful morning, Brandon spoke up with great authority, saying that he had a presentation for the staff. He proudly held up the left-handed hammer and gave a complete recitation of the previous two day’s events, not for a second realizing the absurdity of his story. When he was finished, he concluded that his journey was due to the irresponsibility of the staff and that if it hadn’t been for our clumsy caretaking, he wouldn’t have needed to go on this journey of epic proportions. So because of this, he demanded that both the staff and the staff-in-training compensate him with a song or dance. The staff in training went first and did a poor rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to repent for their mischief in stealing and burying the hammer. The SIT’s had no earthly idea what Brandon was talking about but did it anyway.

Then it was the staff’s turn. Josh, the man behind this operation, stepped out first with the entire 30 man staff in tow. He walked up to Brandon and said for everyone to hear

“Brandon, I’m afraid this may call for both a song, and it’s corresponding dance.” He turned to the staff grinning ear to ear. None of us had a clue about what we were going to do.

He immediately began enthusiastically singing the chicken song while trotting around hunched over with his wrists in his armpits, and we all quickly followed suit. There was a great deal of confusion around the field, but the staff was having a great time giving subtle high fives and singing our hearts out, having abandoned all hope of retaining our straight faces. When the chaos concluded, Brandon appeared to be satisfied and ceremoniously handed the left-handed hammer back over to the quartermaster.

The staff found the whole ordeal hilarious, but decided that we should end our practical joking days, but not before devising one final prank: we wouldn’t tell Brandon the truth. The truth that all hammers are created equal and a person’s dexterity is irrelevant. To our credit, we pulled it off, but to this day, I am fairly certain that he still believes in that glorious tool.

If I can believe in anything as much as Brandon believes in that fabled mono-dexterous tool, I will have succeeded in life.

 

-Nickel