Hammock Amok

Youth Camp was always a fun time. I had a really great and creative youth minister who designed and orchestrated our own youth camps. They were really awesome, and very spiritually refreshing. They were also full of crazy and memorable moments.

One year someone brought a couple of hammocks to camp. There were some trees near the cabins that were just perfect for setting up these hammocks, and there were many of us who took full advantage of the fact that they were there. I, for one, love hammocks and could quite possibly live in one. So I spent my share of time (or perhaps more than my share) hammocking that week.

One afternoon during free time, my friends and I were hanging out (where else) by the hammocks. Because there were only two, we were taking turns getting lost in the reverie of hammock-laying. When it came my turn, my friends got this outrageous notion that it would be hilarious fun to swing me in the hammock. That sounded pretty downright exciting, and I was all for it. I decided to flip over on my stomach and enjoy the ride face-down. The hammock was made of a green mesh and I threaded my fingers through the holes in the netting for a firmer hold in case things got a little wild. It was pretty stinking exhilirating to be in that position, watching the ground come and go, and feeling the wind in my hair as the girls swung me higher, higher, higher. I was having an absolute ball until . . .

. . . until one of the ties came undone from the tree to which it had been attached.

Now, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about when I say that at that point, everything began to run in slow motion. For a moment I was airborne and it was like I was in suspended animation. While I hung there in midair, all I could think about was Wile E. Coyote and then a little tune came trickling through my head as if from far away, "She flies through the air with the greatest of ease . . ." Then UUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRCH!!!!! The other end of the hammock which was securely tied to the opposite tree pulled me back down to earth (and the dirt and rocks below) with a great thud. From my perspective, it was as though the ground came up and smacked me in the face.

Even though it hurt like the dickens, all I could think about was how funny that must have looked, and I lay in a heap on the ground amongst the green mesh just laughing hysterically. My friends saw me shaking and feared that I had been badly injured, but when they realized I was only laughing, they all joined in because, well, it DID look very funny. When I got control of myself enough to survey the damage, I realized that I had scraped most of the skin off the upper part of one of my arms, and a big section of skin was also missing from my hip. The top button had popped off my shirt, and one of my earrings had come out--I think I actually found the button, but the earring must have gone rogue. We never did uncover it. I got a bandage for my hip and some antiseptic spray for my arm--oh, and I changed shirts--and I was good as new. The next day, I noticed that there were bruises on my fingers where they were threaded through the netting on the hammock. Yet another "war wound" from my crazy ride! My friends and I have laughed about this incident for years. Some of us are still laughing. It hasn't deterred me from loving hammocks, but I haven't let anyone swing me in one since. I do think the moral of this story is not that one should avoid swinging in a hammock. It's all about double-checking the ties.