A few years back, I was helping out with church's High School youth group. Somehow it was decided to go to a music festival in California. I am not sure if the youth pastor chose this trip or the kids talked him into it. The plan was to stuff a bunch of kids into a van headed off to Joshua Fest in the middle of nowhere California, known as Quincy (a 10 hour drive from Vancouver, WA).
For the adults, the trip was simple - make sure none the kids die or get left behind. Pretty basic, but this is a group of High School kids. We stuff the van with the kids and head out. It took about 5 minutes for the van to acquire 'the funk' that would remain (and grow stronger), for the rest of the trip. Luckily, this was a good group of kids. Most of the time you put High School boys and girls together for an extended period of time - there is a LOT of drama and fighting. Not so much with this group. A little of both, but not too bad.
High School boys like to tell stories. Especially when girls are around. We told them straight up if you are lying we are going to call you out on it. That is essentially the best way to combat made up stories. I was pretty good at sniffing them out. Once I did, it was easy to call them out. All I did was ask 2 or 3 questions about that would involve details and the story quickly unraveled. High School boys are full of crap and this isn't really a shocker, but we had one kid that topped them all. His "stories" were off the charts bad and everyone knew it. Before leaving we made a special point of reinforcing that we would call him out for lying about his stories. Didn't seem to matter too much.
Within the first hour of the trip, the kids were exchanging different stories about various things, when a lull in the conversation, we heard, "I found a dead finger once!". To this point he had not shared any stories and I think he felt this was his opportunity to do so. Within seconds of those words leaving his mouth the van erupted in laughter and confusion. Someone asked, "Where did you find a 'dead finger?' " He replied, "I was walking home from school and I found it in a field." Then I asked him, "What did you do when you found this 'finger'?" and he said "I picked it up." I said to him, "Then why would you pick up a 'dead finger'?" and the priceless response was, "I thought it was a turd." I looked him straight in-the-eye and asked, "WHY would you be picking up turds?!" You could see the wheels turning as he scrambled to answer that question. He mumbled a couple different things and then just gave up knowing his bogus story didn't have a chance.
A while later he told the real story. It was not a 'dead finger' or a turd. It was simply a rock that at first glance looked like a finger. I will hand it to him that embellishing the simple story of finding a rock in a field to being a 'dead finger' was creative and pretty gutsy to think that others would believe it. All-in-all, it does go down as the best/worst crappy story I have ever heard.
The trip was a success (nobody died or was left behind). The kids had a good time and they really were an easy group to manage. Those 'kids' are now adults and some are married and some have kids of their own but in my mind I will always see them as kids.
Until next time.
Nano Nano,
-Brent
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