The Chicken Heart That Ate Girl Scout Camp & Other Tales of Woe...

"A woman in possession of a zombie story, will be in want of more
zombie stories..."

-Jane Austen

It's time for my annual Labor Day camping trip with my girl scout troop. This will be our 6th year of spending quality time together with monster mosquitos, wobbly canoes and rope burns as I spend my time teaching girls how to start really big fires and how to get burnt marshmallows out of their hair without screaming. Sigh. Has another year really gone by so quickly?

No one has more fun/screaming/trauma than us. No one. I've been with these kids since they were in kindergarten. Now they are in sixth grade. You know what that means...don't you?

THIS IS THE YEAR I'LL FINALLY BE ABLE TO TELL GHOST STORIES AROUND THE CAMPFIRE!!! Mwah! Hah! Hah!

I've been waiting seven years for this. Each year, my troop begs me to tell a scary story and each year I refuse, knowing that if I even begin the one about the hook scraping against the top of the car, I would spend both nights of that trip as a sleepless zombie with enough lanterns lit up to give the appearance of noon at the Equator.

This is a rite of passage. This is an important tradition.

And yet, my delight is somewhat dampened. I hate to admit this. But I only remember the one scary campfire story (the aforementioned hook story, naturalmente). Sad, isn't it?

Where did my memory go? I used to be full of bullsh...I mean tales of terror! I scared my sister so bad once with a vampire melodrama she had to sleep with a string of crucifixes around her neck for a month. They were made out of bendy straws and unfortunately after the first night, they looked like swastikas, causing our mom to ask her why she was afraid of Nazi's attacking in the night.

So why can't I remember all those deliciously terrifying, therapy-inducing campfire stories? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

Wasn't there one about the girl with a ribbon around her neck that kept her vagina from falling off or something? I vaguely recall the story of campers disappearing one-by-one every night...or was that Friday the 13th and Camp Crystal Lake?

I've tried the internet. Not good. I either get something so corny Barney would spit on it or bizarre porn. Neither really works for girls who have mastered sarcasm that would make the writers of The Office jealous, and who still believe if you kiss a guy you'll get pregnant.

Well, I'll figure something out. If you guys have anything, let me know. I'm getting kind of desperate...

The Zombie Assassin Chickenheart