Instructions
- Step 1: Start a whisper campaign Start a whisper campaign about the camp your parents plan to send you to. Hint that supervision is sloppy, the food is unhealthy, and the facilities are dirty.
- Step 2: Offer alternatives Offer alternatives to summer camp. Are you old enough to get a job, like a paper route? What about music lessons or summer school?
- Step 3: Exhibit disturbing behavior Convince your parents that summer camp stinks by turning into the crude camper every counselor hates. When your folks ask what’s gotten into you, say you’re just getting ready for camp.
- Step 4: Try reverse psychology Suddenly act like you can’t wait to get to camp. With any luck, your parents will be so worried about what you’re up to that they’ll cancel your stay.
- TIP: Let them overhear you telling a friend that you plan to “push the envelope” at camp this year.
- Step 5: Plan an escape If you end up at summer camp, send your parents an alarming message about an outbreak that the counselors are supposedly trying to keep quiet. That should convince your parents that summer camp stinks and they need to break you out ASAP.
- Step 6: Show signs of PCSD If nothing works, display signs of PCSD — post-camp stress disorder — when you get home. If you’re convincing, they just may let you off the hook next year.
- FACT: There are more than 12,000 day and resident camps in the U.S.
You Will Need
- Whisper campaign
- Attractive alternatives
- Disturbing behavior
- Reverse psychology
- Manufactured outbreak
- Post-camp stress disorder
