FREDERICA WAS WETTING THE BED

the dead cat stunk. it became THAT SMELL in the fancy restaurant.

on mars, it silenced the squeaking basketball courts.

fans blew in the wrong direction. streamers caught up in their own whirring blades.

crickets burped instead of chirped.

the smell drove the girl scouts to the woods where they could sniff fresh pine and learn to rake dry ground.

the scouts learned to ALWAYS LEAVE A CAMPSITE CLEANER THAN YOU FOUND IT. this was burned into their fragile brains. as was the concept of Camaraderie: NEVER TELL THE COUNSELLOR WHEN YOUR ROOMMATE WETS THE BED, HELP THEM HIDE IT AS LONG AS YOU CAN.

inevitably this last point became a disaster.

after a week of the girls sleeping in damp wooden cabins, the sleeping bag, after six nights of pure pees, clearly could have outstenched a horde of dead cats.

when smells are concentrated and reapplied to themselves, their intensity takes on additional personalities. the scouts in cabin 3 (rhymes with...) were so used to the smell, that they breathed it in nightly, in a rather detatched manner.

when the scoutmaster came in (on a tip off), she had to cover her mouth when the pee made its much anticipated olfactory assault.

(the pee was getting disappointed. dribbling around for a week and not a peep out of the other girls.

GIRLS, bellowed camp Sargant Marj, HOW CAN YOU SLEEP IN THIS CABIN NIGHT AFTER NITE? IT SMELLS LIKE RETIREMENT HOME LAUNDRY AFTER A BEER BASH! HOW COME YOU DIDN'T ALERT ONE OF YOUR COUNSELLORS THAT FREDERICA WAS WETTING THE BED?

the bashful girls slunk down inside their Camp Wackawacka t-shirts with shame. only Meribel spoke in self-defense. 'Ma'am, it started to smell like hot spaghetti, so i stopped worrying.'

One of those things that seems perfectly logical until you say it aloud.

While girl scouts told stories round the fire of MEN FROM MARS, the crickets enjoyed exploring the cracker crumbs and socks left behind by these women from venus.

the girl scouts ate S'Mores and fell asleep with marshmallows burnt on their fingertips and stuck in their hair. those marshmallows made an awful mess for mom to comb out when they got home.

it will hurt. they will yelp and be grumpy.

Nightmares of martians and burping crickets kept the scouts awake all night.

finally, just before dawn when the first flying saucer landed, they had all fallen asleep. the saucer landed delicately on the mossy ground and swung its search beam round the logs and birds’ nests in search of intelligent life--or at least live music like the festival fliers had promised.

nill.
nothing.
not a sound to be heard or a sticky scout to be seen.
'This sucks,' grumbled the saucer crew.

and slowly, they turned their beams skyward, and headed back to mars leaving the scouts to sleep in their pee-soaked sacs de couchage.

One day, those girls grew up.