When your Rector says something… think twice!

In the euphoria of our engagement, I forgot to share the fun of my prior 24 hours: I chaperoned a Sr. High lock-in at my church. Lock-ins are, for the most part, second nature to me. They require little effort other than the ability to stay awake. That’s what I thought, at least, until Jessica mentioned something as we walked into the church before the youth arrived.
“Aimée said it’s OK if we tee-pee them tonight.”

I looked at her confused. I knew to tee-pee (or TP) someone’s house meant to throw toilet paper over their trees and house. But why, in the middle and coldest days of winter, would a youth group want to do such a thing? It turns out that when sponsoring the lock-in last year, Aimée had said it was OK for the youth to do this.

“How is this a good plan?” I kept asking myself before, during, and after the youth did the deed. (Imagine that from the voice of Jacopo in the 2002 version of The Count of Monte Cristo). It seemed like it was too good to be true. It also seemed like it was non-essential to the youth. They didn’t care about it until Jessica reminded them of it.

In spite of all that, it was very fun. It turns out that all of the youth remaining for the whole night (some had to leave early for dentist appointments the following morning) were pretty good toilet paper throwers. They are excellent at lobbing light objects into the air for great distance. I had the sneaking suspicion while we were outside that Jessica’s prophecy would come true. In talking to the group earlier in the night, Jessica had mentioned, “I’d love to be arrested for contributing to juvenile delinquency.” She said it in the context of the charges against a woman in the civil rights protests whose kids were frequently protesting and getting arrested. I could just see it coming true for an event so less noble. The cops never showed up, however.

The night finished very smoothly. I ended up sleeping on a pew in the sanctuary with my pillow and a thick blanket I’d borrowed from Heidi. It was very comfortable until 6:45am when it seemed to drop 20 degrees inside. This was probably all in my imagination — but still, it was cold!

Aimée arrived for work the next morning and quickly let Jessica know that the youth needed to pick up all the toilet paper before they left if they ever wanted to do it again. I’d wondered if that would be the case, but it wasn’t one of the explicit factors in the offer to TP the house, so none of us had planned for it. We woke the kids up and all went out mid-morning to clean.

The funny thing when cleaning up toilet paper with youth: most of them aren’t that tall. They may have picked up 30% before it was all above their height. One of the trees had a low hanging branch and I jumped and pulled myself up enough that I could climb some other branches and dislodge the thin strands of tissue for the youth to collect on the ground. I felt like an ape that goes up a tree just to shake it and get the nuts to fall. After all of us braving the cold and doing very well at TP recovery we went inside and finished the lock-in. This was all part of the euphoria that preceded proposing to Heidi. But now I wonder: am I covered for worker’s comp. since I’m a volunteer and unpaid staff member? Hmm, who knows.

I’m not sure if there was an intended lesson for the youth? Were they supposed to realize that fun comes with a cost (in this case, just picking it up – they didn’t have to pay for the rolls)? Should they have thought twice about the costs to the environment? I’m not sure there was a pre-conceived lesson; hopefully in the future they will ask more questions — and grasp the larger implications — and then hopefully have just as much fun as they did that night. 😀