The Test: Glenda.
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Leonard, as it was called for short, was a beautiful campground located approximately twenty-six miles southwest of Fort Worth near Granbury, Texas. I arrived early and watched and listened as the trainers and the other trainees trickled in. We weren’t allowed to set up our tents until everyone had arrived and played a meet and greet game. Some of the men and women came with friends, chattering and laughing together, and most everyone seemed genial and enthusiastic. And then she arrived.
Her name was Glenda, but when she said it, it sounded like Gleeinda. She had no front teeth, and instead of a leader’s uniform shirt, as we were required to wear, she wore a dirty tee-shirt. She spoke at one volume—loud—and like fingernails on a chalkboard. During the course of the evening campfire, she hooted and hollered, took other people’s food, and even grabbed another campers cell phone, demanding “Gimme that! I gotta make me a call.” I said a silent prayer of thanks to my Maker for the good life I was living, and to American Airlines for group dental insurance.
I didn’t sign up for this.
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I prayed fervently: “Oh no, God! Please, oh no!” Then came my answer. “Donner. . . how many people can y’all fit in that teeint o’ yers?” I heard in the dark. The question was, of course, rhetorical because my tent was huge, and the woman couldn’t bunk with the men in our group. “The instructions say four, but it’s really only two,” I offered lamely, trying to stall for time and hoping for a miracle—like tent poles falling out of the sky. I knew I couldn’t turn her down because we were supposed to behave like good Scouts, as in: “Do a good turn daily.” I had no choice but to invite her in like a vampire.
“Ahm gonna need ta bunk with y’all,” came the voice from the dark side.
“Come on in,” I whimpered. Once inside, she talked and talked until after midnight when, exhausted, I asked her to please let me get some sleep. Rebuffed, she finally stopped chattering. Wallowing in self-pity, I imagined Glenda to be a mole, planted by the trainers to see if we could be good Scouts, i.e. good leaders. I prayed again, “Lord, if this is a test, please help me pass it.”
She ain’t heavy. . . she’s my den mother.
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“Well, how’d it go?” Jim and Robert wanted to know. I answered with all the energy I had remaining: “Red wine, please.”
Next: Miss Congeniality
Donna