The Airing of Dirty Laundry

I was talking to an old friend yesterday who was teasing me about my memory.  You see, I can remember things from eons ago down to the simplest of details.  But when it comes to something that happened last year, I'm lost.  I think my brain got more and more fried with the birth of each child.  At least that's what I claim.

The memory we discussed yesterday happened when I was 14.  It was my first year staying in the dorms at camp.  Oh, the dorms...the spider infested, mold covered, hot, sticky dorms!  You weren't cool unless you stayed in the dorms.  The dorms were a place where competition arose.  We were out to get those who were deemed popular just as they were out to get us.  The competition that exists between young teenage girls is another post for another day.

This friend of mine is several years older than I am and had graduated her dorm-staying days.  (You wise up when you reach a certain age and wonder what you ever saw in the dungeon-like dormitory.)  She, along with two of her friends, came to visit us younger girls in the dorm room they once inhabited.  For some reason, they had a trash bag full of dirty, smelly laundry that was the result of a mission trip out west.  Even worse, the damp laundry belonged to a man.  Jokingly, these older girls told us to put the laundry in the bed of someone from our competition.  I would have never done such a thing but laughed at the prospect of such an insane idea.

I had made friends with a girl from another part of the state.  Her name was Jamie and she ate dill pickle potato chips.  (There's my killer memory again.)  I can still remember how those dill pickle chips stunk up the entire dorm room.  She overheard the laundry conversation with our friends and took it upon herself to see the task through.  She was, in fact, part of the group that we saw as our competition.  Yet, we still liked her.  The room mother in charge of her group was an older, unmarried woman who strongly resembled a hound dog.  I never knew her name and still refer to her as Hound Dog to this day.  Jamie took the stinky laundry and spread it all over Hound Dog's bed.  She then replaced the quilt so that the prank would be discovered at a later time. 

Oh my...when the dirty laundry was discovered, I thought the world was going to end!  They brought the camp director into our dorm who personally interrogated each girl from the other side of our dorm room.  Jamie looked at him directly in the face and lied through her teeth.  Unable to lie, I stayed busy straightening up my area and acted disinterested in the situation.  Luckily, I was never directly put on the spot.

That night, the dirty laundry was aired before the whole camp.  Adults gasped in horror of children who would do such terrible things!  I even remember someone saying that devils and demons were certainly behind this event.  Half scared, half impressed, I fought both laughter and tears as the whole deal was completely blown out of proportion. 

Jamie was never discovered, the owner of the dirty laundry was never found, and my friends and I were never associated with the devilish prank.  But I can close my eyes and be right back in that dorm room, remembering every detail as if it just happened.  But I totally forgot about a photography assignment I promised a friend I'd do last week.  Oh well, at least I'm still half sane.

Do you tend to remember totally pointless details associated with events?