I was also tortured by my parents and sent to sleep-away hell.

I can remember taking only a handful of shits in the eight weeks I was there. The bathroom for each bunk could only be described as a living hell: the closet that held the toilet was covered in spiders, spider eggs, and spider webs. It smelled of fermented feces, and the topper was that the floor was so foul it made a pigpen seem clean. Nobody was responsible for cleaning any of the toilets, and you were lucky if you had one square of toilet paper. On a few occasions I just crapped outside behind the bunk, holding on to a tree and mopping up later with a shower. Peeing in the toilet closet was great fun, though -- I enjoyed drowning the insects.

Looking back, I wonder if I can sue my parents for the trauma they gave me.

Luckily we had weekly trips into town. I would mostly hold it until the weekend and drop bombs at the bowling alley we would frequent.

One unlucky child named Ben had it the worst. Ben started out as a slightly pudgy guy with red hair, but by the end of camp he became grossly obese and refused to move much. But until the very last day of camp, nobody understood why. It turned out Ben was scared of spiders, and after he tried to drop a grogan on the first day he abstained there after. Ben had, by sheer will, refused to shit for nearly the entire eight weeks of camp.

I'd spoken to Ben on the last day as I collected addresses and phone numbers to send mail to my friends during the winter. Ben had told me about his "not being able to shit," and now he feared he had done himself damage. He wanted help, but he was too scared to ask. I told my RA about it, and he got the camp doctor involved.

I found out they gave Ben Ex-Lax. But being twelve at the time, I didn't know what it meant -- until three PM, when our parents came to pick us up.

They made us wait next to the parking lot on the soccer field. What happened next should be made into a movie all its own. Our parents arrived and I met my mom and dad and thanked God I was being saved from this living hell. I enjoyed cussing them out in the car on they way home, but that's another story. Ben's little show helped defuse any fallout from my parents.

As Ben's parents approached him, his excitement made him lose control of the shit bomb inside him.

He detonated, big time.

I remember the noise. I remember watching the very shape of his body change -- imagine losing a hundred pounds in twenty seconds! His belly shrunk and his pants expand. I began to laugh as my parents looked on in horror. And then the SMELL HIT!

Words don't exist to describe it. I was laughing and gagging and near vomiting, my eyes filling with water. And about a hundred and fifty other kids plus their parents were in the same condition. I don't remember much of the next five minutes, but I know my dad grabbed me and dragged me back to the car, and we tore outta there. It took a few hours in my mind to put the pieces together and understand really what happened.

Thus, I've learned this: sleep-away camps are evil.

Ben, if you're reading this: thanks for one of the biggest laughs I've had in my life.