the midnight hike

you remember them don't you? summer camp...the coveted midnight hike? an invitation for disaster if you're name is breanna.

midnight hike story #1:

it was the summer after my 6th grade year. that's the year that you get to go on the midnight hike, at least for those of us at YBC. i was excited, to say the least. keep in mind that, prior to late jr. high, i was about as shy and reserved as i could possibly be. there was a boy. his name was nick. well, his name is still nick. you get the idea. he was a year older than me, and he was a drummer. instant crush, right? my much older friend spent three days building me up to have the courage to ask nick to go with me on the midnight hike. and for some insane reason, i went ahead and asked. his response? "i can't go cause now that i'm junior staff i have to stay and help in the kitchen." i was devastated. my first attempt at boycourage. but i thought it through. well, he didn't say he didn't WANT to go with ME, he said he COULDN'T. i can work with that. so i figured, who needs the midnight hike? i mean, sure, i've waited for it since i started coming to this camp in the 1st grade, but, whatever. so i decided to stay and help nick in the kitchen. i thought it would provide the PERFECT opportunity for him to realize he hearted me. so, as all my peers and their nervous dates took off up the mountain, i stayed behind and walked to the kitchen. i even put on an apron and some rubber gloves.

and waited.

for two hours

when i finally saw nick walking towards the kitchen, i got SO SO SO excited. until i realized that he was walking towards the kitchen with all the midnight hikers. MY midnight hikers from MY midnight hike. and he was walking with A GIRL. THE girl that he went with on the midnight hike. MY midnight hike. i hate boys.

side note: my crush continued long into the summer. when i set up my very own bank account a month later, i used nick's birthday as my pin number. TO THIS DAY when i take out some cash or buy shampoo and magazines, i'm reminded of how nick broke my little heart.

this is nick's myspace. feel free to send him nasty messages.



midnight hike story #2:

fast forward several years. it's the summer after my sophomore year in high school. i'm much more mature and boy-wise at this point. this year, we went to SBC for the summer camp experience. there was a boy. he was a singer. A GREAT SINGER. instant crush, right? i will actually not expose who this fellow is, because A WHOLE LOT OF YOU know him. so i have this massive crush on him throughout the week. he was older, by about two years. and i was pretty sure he didn't know i existed. that was until the third day of camp when HE asked ME to go with him on the midnight hike. and i was all like, feeling GREAT about it. lucky me. i'd finally have the midnight hike i deserved. we didn't really talk to each other much throughout the week. i figured we were saving it all for some fireworky conversation on THE HIKE. so, the last night of camp comes along, and i spend quite a bit of time making sure that i look lovely, but not so lovely that i give away that i'm not much of the camping/non-midnight hiking kind of girl, lest he be an outdoorsy kind of fellow. i select my very best sweatshirt (you know, the one that smells the least awful by the end of the week) and i go to meet him at the agreed upon place.

and there he is!!

with another girl

i couldn't decide whether to run away or scream or cry or what. but that voice, the one that said "nick said he COULDN'T, not that he didn't WANT to" spoke up with "maybe they're just chatting while he waits for you. maybe they're related." so i walked right up, smile on face. and he looks at me, and says "hey...." all like "why are you interrupting?" and i say "isn't this where you wanted me to meet you?"

and that's when he realizes that he COMPLETELY FORGOT about asking me on the midnight hike. MY midnight hike. so he tries to make it all like, "yeah, there's a GROUP of us going..." except that the "group" was me, him and her. not my cup of tea.

so i said some kind of jumbled up, trying not to cry sentance about "oh, i was planning to walk with some of my friends...." which was a total lie, because ALL my friends had midnight hike partners of the opposite sex.

back to the cabin i went to cry.

a few years later, when we were going to the same college, and a mutual friend pointed out to this guy what he had done, he apologized, and it was fine, if not humiliating. but the moral of the story is as follows:

midnight hike = suck