I remember a couple of years ago, it might have been three years. I was at camp. This guy, Joseph, was there too. Joseph was an interesting fellow; he'd always be there by your side, ready to supply all sorts of pointless remarks and random quips.
I've always wanted to say the word "quip". Quippage. Quippination. Quippimification.
Joseph. Right.
At camp, about three weeks into the month-long term we go to this other camp, Mystic, for a dance. I go to an all-guys camp, Mystic's an all-girls camp, it works out. So we go to this dance, the whole camp. Joseph's there, I'm there, a couple hundred other people are there. So we dance and party and stuff, and halfway into it the talented Mr. Joseph is approached by a somewhat homely girl, to put it in terms that won't get me castrated by my lady friends. She asks him if he wants to dance with her, since a slow song just started, some corny country thing about ranches and cattle and doggies and lassoes and other such things. (I can only make horribly prejudiced comments like that because I'm a Texan.) She being more than a little unattractive, Joseph says, some would argue understandably, no (Personally, had I been standing near him I would have warned him to take what he can get). Not no, thank you or I was just leaving but no. So I'm not sure who does it, either the girl herself or some big scary friend of hers, but somehow Joseph gets body-slammed and falls to the ground to the tune of much mockery and derision. Thoroughly humiliated, Joseph goes back to camp along with the rest of us and we make fun of him the whole way back - and for the next two years and running, too.
But wait! There's more!
A few days after this incident, Joseph received a piece of mail. It was, as I recall, from a certain cabin in Mystic. Upon opening the parcel, the sheer aura of hatred emanating from the piece of parchment enclosed therein was nearly enough to knock the not-exactly-feather-light child to the ground. By this time, people had noticed our boy's plight, and several gathered round to view the contents of that exquisite epistle. When we finally got past all that pretty speech and actually read the damn thing, we were greeted by a veritable plethora of swears, death threats, and I believe racial slurs - which is pretty odd since I can't think of much of a reason to be prejudiced against Joseph because of his race. It turned out that the entire cabin of the rejected girl - and apparently several others - had taken justice into their own hands and given Joseph a royal chewing out, using words some of which I didn't even know, most of which made absolutely no sense, and each and every one of which would have slain our boy Joseph if words were capable of wielding daggers, swords, walri, and other such instruments of destruction.
When we eat lunch at camp, from time to time someone will yell out several numbers or words and, depending on the content and order of the shouts, the occupants of the dining hall will make large amounts of noise sometimes resembling words. Ever since that fateful night, several times per term someone raises up cries of "Joseph! Joseph!" whereupon they are greeted by an ensemble of "BODYSLAM!"s.
Most triumphant.
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