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So yesterday I was walking down a random railroad track in the middle of a random swamp, picking blackberries when my phone rang.
It was my sister. She was like, "Hey, I know this is out of nowhere, but... you remember Pipi Camp?"
Of course I did. It was a week-long Christian camp my parents would send us to every summer. "... Yeah."
And then she was all, "Okay, do you remember the ceremony the last night where they did the thing with the sticks? Like, throw them into the fire?"
"... Yeah?"
"What did they call it?"
Then I remembered. Oh man, it had been years since I had thought of it. "They called it burning the fags."
So that was why she called, because she remembered out of the blue and she HAD to make sure she hadn't misunderstood or was going crazy or something. But she wasn't. I remembered they would explain that the sticks were calls "faggots" because that was an old word for sticks... but now that I'm grown up, it totally isn't. I mean, unless we're in the UK and we're smoking cigarettes. But we're not. We're in California.
Again, it's been years. I can't remember the exact reasons for the ceremony, and she can't either. I think we had to wrap a piece of paper around the stick before throwing it into the fire to burn. It might have been what we learned during our week in the camp, or a confession about our sins or something along those lines. Can't remember.
So, Christian friends on my flist, is this like... a normal thing? Am I missing something here, or does this whole thing seem just as fucked up as I am now realizing?
It was my sister. She was like, "Hey, I know this is out of nowhere, but... you remember Pipi Camp?"
Of course I did. It was a week-long Christian camp my parents would send us to every summer. "... Yeah."
And then she was all, "Okay, do you remember the ceremony the last night where they did the thing with the sticks? Like, throw them into the fire?"
"... Yeah?"
"What did they call it?"
Then I remembered. Oh man, it had been years since I had thought of it. "They called it burning the fags."
So that was why she called, because she remembered out of the blue and she HAD to make sure she hadn't misunderstood or was going crazy or something. But she wasn't. I remembered they would explain that the sticks were calls "faggots" because that was an old word for sticks... but now that I'm grown up, it totally isn't. I mean, unless we're in the UK and we're smoking cigarettes. But we're not. We're in California.
Again, it's been years. I can't remember the exact reasons for the ceremony, and she can't either. I think we had to wrap a piece of paper around the stick before throwing it into the fire to burn. It might have been what we learned during our week in the camp, or a confession about our sins or something along those lines. Can't remember.
So, Christian friends on my flist, is this like... a normal thing? Am I missing something here, or does this whole thing seem just as fucked up as I am now realizing?
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"Yes, we do," I say patiently.
"So how could you be Jewish? You've read the bible?" she continues. "And you seem to understand it?"
Pondering how I could say that in my suitcase was a copy of the Koran without getting myself stoned, I just moved on.
And actually, yeah, it does smell good and it's kinda fun.