What happens when your summer as a camp counselor is ending

And you’re not quite ready to leave yet


It’s almost August, which means only one thing: summer is about to be over.

At camp though, there are a few other ways to figure out that it’s almost time to grab your backpack, pack up your life, and head back to college.

You start figuring out how to either cover or fix your tan lines

Unless you continue to wear exactly what you wore at camp, you’re going to have visible tan lines everywhere. And at this point in the summer, you’re way past cute little bikini strap tans. You’ve got Chaco tans, Birkenstock tans, watch, friendship bracelet and FitBit tans, a major shorts tan, a decent farmers tan, and a sunglasses tan.

Every piece of skin that isn’t extremely tanned is as blindingly pale as it was back in the middle of February. You need either clothes with lots of coverage, or a very good, strategically applied spray tan, stat.

You start counting down the days

You’ve been without A/C and your phone for TWO MONTHS now, and you just want to be able to talk to your friends whenever you want, instead of once every five days when you get mail. Your children are loud, and you’re tired, a little homesick, and getting overwhelmed by just how much adulting you’ve done over your summer break.

Also, the bugs are definitely getting bigger.

But you also start wishing there were more

As hot as it is, you really love your campers, and you’ll miss them when it’s time to go home.

You start shaving less

Really, the only people who care are the parents, and they only visit on the weekends. Competitions to see who gets the hairiest (among campers and counselors alike) are rampant and cutthroat.

You sleep every chance you get

Time off? Take a nap in the counselor retreat. No class? Take a nap. Came back early from your off time? Head straight to bed. No activities until later? Time to sleep. Too hot to do anything? Sleep.

You tell your campers you love them more often

But really, we do.

You stargaze more

There ain’t no sky like a camp sky, and you only get to see the camp sky for ten more days.

You use less of your time off

There’s only so many things you can buy at Walmart before you run out of money and space, and most places aren’t open until midnight anyway. The Starbucks baristas also know you well enough by now to not have any hesitation in kicking you off the patio by 11 o’clock.

They closed an hour ago, and have no pity for your generally WiFi-less state.

You know exactly when to clean up some song lyrics

Tonight let’s get some [ICE CREAM!] and live while we’re young, am I right One Direction?

You know it’s only a matter of time until your campers web you

So you don’t go anywhere without your scissors. You also sleep with one eye open, because if you sleep deeply enough, they might just web you in to your bunk. It’s happened before.

A/C is basically winter

After being outside it the blazing sun, anything below 85 degrees is basically like the tundra

Everything makes you sad

“It’s the last Fish Stick Friday!”

“Less than a week of classes left!”

“You can start packing up your campers on Wednesday.”

“The next time you wear your counselor uniform it will be for Closing.”

And even though it was the longest, hardest, hottest summer of your life, you’re still planning on coming back the next summer.