I've mentioned my love of summer camp before and I think it's safe to say that it effectively made me into a geeky, 'girl power,' tie-dye loving freak. Amazingly, I still have a successful social life and due to my extreme awkwardness, vastly competitive nature, and fairly strict social upbringing, I'm sometimes told I come off as intimidating and unapproachable, which couldn't be further from my own actual perception of things, but hey-o, I don't hate it.
My sister, nearly three years younger than I, is similarly blessed with these qualities. Minus the tye-die loving freak part, that's all mine. Although, just to be clear I'll have you know that I actually work the power-suit and pumps look and I like to keep drum-circle Sara limited to certain area of my life, if you know what I mean.
When I was a senior in high school, my sister, Beth, was a freshman. PSH, more like FRESH MEAT. Bahaha. Okay that wasn't funny. Anyway, we were both on the Cross Country team. Except, I was like, a senior, and like, totally varsity, and she was significantly lower on the totem pole, because duh, FROSH. It's kind of a tough thing to build up your image or popularity level or status or whatever bizarre pissing contest it is in high school and beyond for three years and then have a family member who actually knows you and the fact that you cry during the fucking movie previews and also uses the bathroom after you at home where all the number twos go down. It's an intrusion. Or, it can feel like one.
There's no mystery.
It was high school, it was cross country, in Indiana. This wasn't exactly Laguna Beach or 90210 or Gossip Girl. Again, cross country. Not a headline sport. But whatever, I had the team of girl and guy runners and we all sat around together on Friday nights and ate carrot sticks and watched Forrest Gump or Sandlot if we were in season, while the rest of our fellow student body was robotripping or getting busted for throwing corn husks at semis from the overpass. It was vaguely cult-like, as most sports with semi-talented athletes are.
And boy, did we have some hot ticket events of which to look forward. One particularly exciting highlight was TEAM CAMP. Team camp was when we stayed IN THE DORMS of a college campus twenty miles away from our hometown for three nights and basically gorged ourselves on each other... and running three times a day. And sometimes swimming. And playing ultimate frisbee. And having ping-pong and basketball tournaments in which everyone, even the most uncoordinated, were required to participate. ALSO, the talent show.
Oh, the talent show.
Senior year summer team camp talent show, it was the 'cool' thing to be in as many skits as possible, or maybe that was just me. I'm not sure on that, I just know I was in several talent show acts, but that was maybe just because of my compulsion to win and so I felt being in as many of the acts as possible would up my chances. The senior ladies coreographed a dance WITH PROPS and MATCHING OUTFITS to the tune of Video Killed the Radio Star. Style, bitches. Also particularly memorable is the skit I'm about to share with you and the reason for this post.
It's called Peanut Butter and Jelly.
And if I may say so myself, it was a crowd favorite. Even if we were scammed out of the highest honors.
Right, so Peanut Butter and Jelly.
The premise of this skit is to act completely stoic the entire time. It's to be treated with a sense of gravity and artsy pretentiousness to the crowd, who is hopefully losing their shit and laughing their asses off. One person is Peanut Butter and the other is Jelly. Essentially, you just go back and forth smearing the ingredient you're assigned on the other person, naming the part as you do it, taking turns until you're both miserable, sticky, messes. We used entire over-sized jars of each on one another, and if we're being honest, I wouln't have hated having two a piece.
My Sister and I attended the same summer camp, albeit at different points in the summer, as children. We'd both witnessed said skit, and been amazed by it as wee lasses. So, in an effort to be less of a bitch to my little sister, the newbie on the team trying to gain some notoriety, I decided good old Beth and I should perform this together. It's kind of the perfect skit for sisters to do, because nobody knows how to be malicious like closely-aged sisters know how to be malicious to one another.
Our version when something like this:
Me: (Smearing peanut butter on Beth's pig-tailed locks) Peanut Butter hair gel!
Beth: (Playfully ringing my neck with jelly) Grape Jelly necklace!
Me: Peanut butter tube socks!!
Beth: Grape Jelly Sleeves!!
Me: Peanut butter lip gloss!!.
Beth: Grape Jelly blush!!
Me: Peanut butter eyeshadow!!
Beth: Grape Jelly underwear!!!!!
Grape jelly underwear. ON STAGE. It was totally on after that. I'm not kidding, we had an all-out war. The camp counselors we'd seen perform this skit as children were friends, so they hugged it out at the end. A third counselor had run out and rapidly threw a loaf of bread, slice, by slice on them and proclaimed 'Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich!!!!!!!' And they bowed it out and it was met by overwhelming applause, by the fourteen and under crowd.
We were NOT met by overwhelming applause right away. We were sisters, and shit was getting serious, seriously out of hand. The other high-school aged members of the team had NO idea how to react. Perhaps it was weridly erotic for the male members and we didn't really think it through. My coach nearly LOST. HIS. SHIT. about the mess we made, us failing to realize just how fucking sticky everything was to become around us. Plus, we started getting legitimately pissed at each other and my friend Jessica ended up akwardly running out with the loaf of bread and kind of breaking up our shoving and condiment flinging as she doused us with bread.
In the end, we gave each other the one-stage hug, but like, the kind where you squeeze so hard that you're actually trying to hurt the other person without making it super obvious.
Crickets.
AND THEN, WAIT FOR IT.
The ROAR of applause. Weird, confused, oh-shit-what-just-went-down, 'that was fucking awesome,' applause.
God, do I love the sound of applause.
In the end, our coach was seriously furious about the skit and how we weren't *exactly* forthcoming with details prior to performance (um, we knew he was going to say no, and it's obviously better to beg for forgiveness.) and purposely didn't include us in the applause level judging to determine a winner. AND we had to scrub a nasty dorm common-area for a unreasonably long time. However, the clean-up did allow us time to make ammends and bond over the fact that we just
Beth and I already knew we were the real winners. You know, sisterly bonding and blood being thicker than water and stuff.
I think there may actually be some pictures of this circulating around still, so I'll see what I can do in the means of evidence. Oh, shit.
Xo Sare
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