The Pamper Pole

When I was between my Sophomore and Junior years in highschool I worked as a volunteer staffer at a wilderness camp in Montana. Awesome fun. Anyway, during the training they make all the staff members go through the high ropes course so that we fully understand what we are doing to these poor campers. Well, I dont think I was totally ready for this. I mean, I was only supposed to be there to wash dishes!

As it turns out I was leading the ropes course for the junior high camps. Ugh. I am no good with junior high snots. They grate my nerves...(good thing I've procreated eh?)

Well, for my training I had to learn the single most horrifying lesson of my life. I had to learn why the worst element in the ropes course is called the Pamper Pole. The Pamper Pole is a telephone pole with little notches every few feet. You harness up, put on a helmet and start climbing. It's a full pole too, and not only do you climb the ehffin pole, you have to stand on top of this monster when you get to the top. So we all joked that if anyone can do a karate kid pose on the top, they get a free t-shirt. Oh heck no! It took all I had in me just to climb it.

Then when I got near the top I could hear my team down on the ground, miles beneath me hollering "you are almost there, dont forget to stand on the top." Yeah, have you ever seen the top of a telephone pole? There is barely enough room for one foot let alone two. But I got on top, shaking like it was negative 10 degrees outside...in June....And as I'm standing there it dawns on me...I have to pee. Oh do I have to pee. Like nobody's business. That my friends was when it finally dawned on me that perhaps it is called the pamper pole for this very reason...it's so insanely terrifying that you may just wish you had a spare diaper.

Oh and I forgot to mention, 8 feet out and 3 feet up into the air from the pole is a trapeze...just hanging there. Waiting for the terrified person to finish peeing their pants so that they can jump off the gently swaying pole and hope they catch the trapeze. Oh heck no....

I did not jump. I did not pose like the karate kid. I simply closed my eyes, hugged myself and just sorta fell off the top of this pole that was miles from the ground.

Never again. Never.