“Ugh. No, I mean you dig a trench around your tent so the water goes into the trench instead of into the tent.”
 
“Uh…they never taught us that one.”
 
“I thought the boy scouts were supposed to be better than the girl scouts at that kind of stuff.”
 
“So did I.”

 

With boy scouts everything was paid out of pocket with dues. We kind of had a fundraiser but that was for some charity. Don’t remember what it was. I had to sell poppies to people. I think the poppies had something written on them. Something like “We will never forget.” So yeah, the girl scouts get to sell things that people actually want, like cookies, while the boy scouts have to hock frilly little plastic flowers. Something’s wrong with that picture.

When I went into the Boy Scouts, my father recommended that I shop around and check out all the local troops before joining one. I found that some were much more active than others, and that some leaders were much more knowledgeable than others about woodcraft and other skills traditionally associated with scouting.

The troop I wound up joining was innovative as well as active. We didn’t sell Girl Scout cookies, but we did raise funds for camp-outs and other activities by selling stuff that people actually needed and wanted. With the week-long trips they offered each summer, we were required to sell stuff and earn our way there, even if our families could afford to send us.

I suppose there may have been some base set of activities that each troop was required to provide their members, but a lot more things seemed to be regarded as guidelines or recommendations. Each troop’s leadership seemed to have wide discretion concerning what activities to offer, and varying levels of skill and knowledge to provide.

~o~O~o~
On another topic, considerably more satire could have been produced for this story by having the “trouser snake” become the sort that plumbers use to clear drains, rather than a reptilian specimen. :D