Summer camp stories: My scandalous little art project

When I was between the ages of 7 and 9, I went to art camp in my hometown. It was a few weeks every summer and it was held at an old mansion with tons of crazy rooms, hidden closets and coach houses. I absolutely loved it. We got to do tons of fun artsy things like sketching, drawing, tracing, painting, calligraphy, etc. It was perfect for a shy girl like me who had an overactive imagination and a flair for everything colorful. 

One day, when I was 8, our counselors took us into the coach house to escape a sudden rainstorm. It was quite clear they had nothing really planned for us, until they stumbled upon a box of random chunks of wood. It wasn't long before they concocted the clever assignment—to make ANYTHING out of the wood. They even offered their glue gun services to help foster our creativity. 

Most kids has no clue what to do. Wood was something we had never worked with before so everyone was kind of confused. But me? I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to make.

I quickly searched for two perfect pieces of wood, had the counselors glue them together in just the right spot, painted it with the best shade of purple I could find, and sprinkled it with tiny hot pink painted hearts. When that was done, I dug through the scrap box in the corner, desperately looking for the perfect swatch of red felt and fancy gold beads. After all, I needed to make the perfect curtain. Yes, curtain. To me, this wasn't just a silly project; this was art. 

When I was all finished, I proudly ran to my counselors show off my exquisite masterpiece:

A kissing booth. 

My counselors (probably 17 or 18 at the time) took one look at it and burst out laughing. At first I laughed with them. Surely, my brilliant work of art brought about such happiness. But then they asked me to explain it to them. They wanted to know why I created a kissing booth.

Well I just thought it was such a romantic idea. People could go sit on the purple bench, behind the red beaded curtain, and kiss in private. It was so obvious to me, and it was such a lovely thought in my little head.

Needless to say, the counselors couldn't get enough of it. They marched me all across the camp, showing off my kissing booth to every other counselor. It was met with laughter every single time. I was thrilled because I thought it was just that great. Clearly I didn't understand the fact that it was quite funny for a shy 8-year-old to create a snazzy little kissing booth and not get what was so funny. At that age, I didn't even know there was more than kissing. Geesh.

I came across the kissing booth not too long ago and it made me laugh out loud. It was pretty darn scandalous. I still wonder where the heck I came up with the kissing booth idea...I mean, I was pretty sheltered. I wasn't even allowed to watch R-rated movies until I was 16!