What the Hell is a Day Camp?

It has come to my attention that many people don’t know what a day camp is.  Well, luckily for you I occasionally enjoy sharing some of my vast knowledge with the educationally challenged people of the world.  A day camp is a place where parents ship their kids for the summer, but unlike a normal summer camp the kids come home every day.  It normally takes place during standard business hours, and serves as a way for parents to go to work and  not have to worry about their kids.  It’s basically a glorified baby sitting service for kids ranging in age from roughly 5 to 15.  They run on a weekly basis, often involve themes like magic, sports, God, theater or a variety of other things.  Sometimes they involve field trips, and occasionally take the kids over night.

These are usually run in urban areas and filled with kids from the suburbs.  They are supervised by young adults, primarily older teenagers and young twenties college kids, with a few older adults watching over the proceedings.  It is a very unique culture where time seems to simultaneous slow down and speed up.  Days seem to last weeks and kids form relationships at an intensely rapid pace.  Some kids go for the entire summer, while others only attend for a week or two.  Children become best friends, enemies, and dates, all within a very a very short span of time.

As I mentioned in the past, Alex and I attended a day camp together in our early teen years.  In fact we met at a YMCA adventure camp.  On a side note, I also met my wife there, and occasionally still see a couple of other old campers.  At one point Alex and I planned on working there, took part in a training program, but decided to bail out at the last minute before becoming official “leaders”.  The comic strip is our retelling of this strange period in our lives.  It’s a way of sharing this odd culture, some of our actual experiences, and a few of the crazy characters we met there.