Mandy has been asked to be a merit badge counselor to the scouts for the First Aid merit badge. One Tuesday night she went to help them out and I went along for the ride. Here are my minutes from that night.

7:06 Right now I am sitting in the church waiting for scouts to start. Mandy will be teaching them first aid. She has prepared a game of Jeopardy to help keep their attention and I am supposed to be the dummy or the “Annie” that Mandy will work on as she teaches the various skills.

7:15 We’re still waiting for the scouts and this was supposed to start at 7:00.

7:18 The scouts have now arrived and they begin by getting into a lively dispute before repeating the scout oath together.

7:24 I remember how bad I don’t want to be a scoutmaster.

7:30 The scouts just finished a lengthy conversation about how many strikers we have left. Apparently someone else broke most of the strikers and now there are only two left. Boredom is now setting in. I slowly fade out of consciousness as I wonder what a striker is.

7:35 Mandy announces that she is going to lead the scouts in a game of Jeopardy and at once all of the scouts start humming the theme song to “Jeopardy”.

7:45 Mandy nearly loses her patience, as one scout will not hold still because the Heimlich maneuver is ticklish.

7:52 Every single scout thinks that he is going to be the next great comic. There is no end to the comedy around here. I haven’t decided which one to slap first. At this point the scout leaders have lost complete control. The boys appear to have beaten them to submission at previous scout meetings because they aren’t doing anything to control this madness.

8:05 There is nothing funny about this anymore. I wish it would end.

8:11 Mandy is teaching CPR. The scouts want her to perform CPR on me and all start laughing. I tell them that they are all going to have to perform CPR on one another. That quiets them for at least 15 seconds.

8:15 It is finished. I survived one night of scouting. I still have a knot in my gut that says someday I will be doing this on a weekly basis.