Dear blob,I love you. I thought about trying to ease my way into this letter. Trying to play it cool and slowly unravel my emotions but I can't do that when it comes to you, can I?
What is it about your big, rainbow colored rubber bladder that makes you so perfect? Is it the stripes that are strewn festively across your air-filled belly? Is it that you sit patiently waiting for me in the middle of a lake? Is it that you live for my enjoyment and my enjoyment alone?
It's difficult to say, but I wanted you to know something, you are the original moon bounce. I know that right now you're going through some tough times. Churches and camps have taken your technology on dry land. We're cheating on you, bouncing on castles and slides and other blow up toys that we can rent from some bouncesheba down the street. Years ago, if someone wanted to jump out of control and land awkwardly on their back or collide heads with someone else and make that coconut "thunk," there was only one option, you. But now, we've cheapened your boisterous bounciness with knock offs.
Can you forgive me blob? I've changed. Oh, how I've changed. I never go on those moon walk bounce things anymore. All I want is to be back with you. All I want is for someone heavier to jump off something high and send me cascading through the air like a dove of mercy into a lake. Is that so much to ask? Can we not rebuild what we once had?
Like the band "Our Lady Peace" once sang, "I know you're out there, somewhere out there." Please forgive me. Float back into my life. I promise that when I open my camp, "iCampJesusxTremeadventuramatacular" you will be the star attraction. I'll cut down my ropes course for you. I'll punch the archery range in the face. Just come home.
I see your true colors,
Jon
Thanks, Jon. Now I have Cyndi Lauper stuck in my head. I cannot handle your hilarity. "...cascading through the air like a dove of mercy... I'll punch the archery range in the face..." In spite of the funniness, this post has made me realize something truly devastating in my own life, though:
ReplyDeleteI have never encountered the Blob. Ever. I never went to camp as a child, and the one at which I was a counselor never had one. I have been robbed of what appears to be a quintessential experience. I must go today, the day of my husband's birth, and find us a Blob to celebrate. Enough of my time has been lost in a Blob-less existence. I must go. I must go now.
Bouncesheba = awesome.
ReplyDeleteOh how I miss you too, Blob. You were the only one who could ever make us fat kids feel cool and popular for one weekend out of the year.
ReplyDeleteEvery year at camp, I felt like the king of the world, thanks to you. You made being "big-boned" popular and awesome. Somehow, with you around, it felt ok to eat the extra twinkies that Mom packed and to get thirds for breakfast, even though camp food is never that great. It was like fuel for staying awesome.
You have a gift, Blob, for taking what some see the worst about people, bringing them together, and creating an epic display of extreme awesomeness.
No one else could ever create an epic friendship of a small, short kid and a fat kid like me, like you did on the first day at camp.
I'll be back again to camp one day, Blob. I hope you'll be there, too.
if you're ever in kentucky, i can take you to a camp with two blobs (nearly) side by side. you can have blobbing duels.
ReplyDeleteI hereby rebuke this letter in the name of sweet baby Jesus.
ReplyDeleteBlob,
It is due to your semi-domestic violence that I still can't make my right shoulder work correctly. To plead for you to take me back would be to return to the relationship that has caused me to so much hurt over the years. Blob, you no longer have power over me. I have moved on and my self-worth is no longer determined by how high you can launch me into the air. I am free of you, I have escaped the chains of my codependence and I refuse to voluntarily return to my subservience to your blubbery and often shivering-cold ballon of fun lust.
Freely independent,
Matty
Gasp! Keep your hands off the archery range!
ReplyDeleteamen!! the blob was an awe-inducing fixture at summer camp, and now kids just expect the bounce house at their birthday parties. they have no idea what they're settling for.
ReplyDeleteI love that you quoted both Our Lady Peace AND Cyndi Lauper. You rock. And I don't think I've ever played on a "blob" before. I must have been deprived.
ReplyDeleteAt the camp I used to work at, we had a game (I forget what it was called, but it had some preposterous name like "Ostrich Egg Keep Away") that involved greasing up a watermellon and chucking it in the lake, and then letting little kids chase it around until they eventually smashed it. When this game didn't end in a watermellon being smushed between two seven year olds (some watermellons are quite determined to not be fish food), the watermellon's poor fate was generally to be blobbed to smithereens.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the blob enjoys having greased-up, lake-water-washed, 7-year-old-boys-who-haven't-showered-all-week-ed watermellons repeatedly thrown at it. I'm sorry, blob. I shouldn't have let this happen.
The blob totally got me back, though, with that bruised eardrum. That seriously hurts. Please, future blobbers--obey the "within 50 pounds of your own weight" rule.
Nice! My former had a bouncy castle for the kids, they ended up not using it because the kids wouldn't calm down. It must have taken the kids a month to wean off of it. Btw, are you still emailing people free copies of your book chapters?
ReplyDeleteI never got to play on the blob as a kid.. :( I feel so.....deprived.
ReplyDeleteIsn't "I know you're out there somewhere" from The Moody Blues?
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome! I didn't realize there were blobs at other camps...it was my favorite part. I even bought a shirt after that said "I survived the blob..."
ReplyDeleteman i love our lady peace....
ReplyDeleteThey had one of these at our kids camp...it was so long ago, and sadly I had forgotten it until you posted this love letter. Which I appreciate. What a pleasure to relive my childhood as I read your love letter to the Blob. Sniff sniff. I sure miss him.
ReplyDeleteI have never experience the blob before. I have bounced within my share of castles, but never felt the elation of the blog that you describe here.
ReplyDeleteMy life, I realize, is incomplete.
"i see your true colors" LOL!
ReplyDeleteOh blob...I love you too. Remember that year we met? I was a first grader and you were at Girl Scout camp. I was a timid and homesick weenie, but you, you saw through me and knew I was cool kid shrouded in self-doubt. Remember when it occurred to me that I could employ the backflips I learned in gymnastics and those sweet ballet moves from dance class into the flips you would give me? Remember how I made Leslie Dalrymple seethe in green jealousy because she couldn't do the flips and graceful ballet leaps? Oh blob, you made me a camp legend that year. I got an improptu acknowledgement on awards night and had 5th, yes 5th graders, asking me to help them do "the moves" that you and I threw down.
ReplyDeleteOh blob, how I wished to pass along our tricks to my two girls, but alas, the attorney's and high-strung parents have seen to it that you aren't allowed in church camps that we attend. They call you dangerous. But I know the truth. I know you would never hurt us...
47 years old - and I never even knew the blob existed! What a waste my life has been! Thank the dear Lord I've become a Christian, because otherwise, I'd never have subscribed to a site like this. And never learned of the joy thousands of others have kept from me. That's it - where's the next Adult Christian Summer Camp and Blob Festival? I'm in!
ReplyDeleteBouncesheba - I'm working that into two conversations today.
JON!!
ReplyDeletehead over to ragamuffinsoul (carlos)...there's something there I think you should see.
oh my sweet baby Jesus!!
*smacks forehead*
Dear Blob,
ReplyDeleteYour siren call caught many a camp counselor in its grasp. Oh how we longed to land in the ketchup (red) on our bumpers (butts)and toss our fellow summer slaves into the cool spalsh of the pool. Alas, you were beyond our reach as we were too old and not insured. Yet blob, you know that a few of us couldn't resist the melody of your song and we blobbed illegally that one evening while the camp director was away. We rebelled and were proud of it. We partook of the great blob and all its glory and left better people because of you.
Oh, and that chart we kept of "blob-cidents" in the leadership cabin, it was in honor of you and your ability to be both fun and dangerous at the same time.
I had never got to experience the Blob until I worked at a camp as a college student. My two main memories are the time I(weighing about 190 lbs.) blobbed one of our cabin leaders in training(who weighed maybe 110-115 lbs.) and sent her flying. She landed between the two cabin leaders that were in the water to watch the kids from a distance, so they were out of the way but close enough they could help anyone that might struggle. She reminded me of this the other day as she's now working at the same camp.
ReplyDeleteThe other one was having a cabin leader in training(that weighed maybe 245) blob me. I had almost slid off the front of the blob, so I had to lean back. When he hit the blob I did a weird twisting backflip and thought I was gonna land headfirst back on the blob, breaking my neck in the process. At the last second, I turned enough that I landed on my back and bounced the cabin leader in training and myself off the blob at the same time. One of the other cabin leaders was scared we had killed each other and we came out of the water laughing.
I will never forget the blob and the fun I had. I just wished we had met sooner.
JWeav
alas......i am of a pre blob generation.........
ReplyDeleteThis post is awesome. And Matty's letter rebuking the blob is possible even more awesome.
ReplyDeleteI, too, never went to summer camp and so therefore never had the joy of blobbing.
ReplyDelete(sigh)
hey jon im 14 and my mom was laughing at our comptuor so i walked in to see what was going on cause she never laguhs that much at our computer. dude i have been on the blob i understand the love haha you are awsome and made my day
ReplyDeletep.s. bounceshba hahahaha (:
I will second the rebuking of the blob by matty. I was 26 before I was ever "blobbed" and my neck has never been the same. It was my own fault however. The kid who blobbed me was about 150 heavier than I was, well over the advised weight range between blobber and blobbee.
ReplyDeleteDear Blob,
ReplyDeleteI am one of the lightweights that people liked to bounce sky high before faceplanting into the water.
I can't say that I miss you.
hahahaha oh so funny.
ReplyDeleteSadly, i've never had the blessed experience of the blob. But the pictures that are now conjuried in my mind are leaving me with fits of laughter.
Thanks SCL. You made my blobby day.
**SOB** Oh the remembered pain! *Sniffle* I went to church camp as a kid and it was right next to the "rich kid" camp. We used to walk along the river's edge that crossed part of their camp.
ReplyDeleteIt was there that the longing began. Yes. It was blob.
He lived in the pond at the rich kids camp, and never once came to visit the pond at our camp (since we probably couldn't afford the insurance). Every time I walked passed I would give him a little wave and know that secretly, Blob wished he could come to our way more fun camp and bounce me in the air. They could have kept their air conditioned cabins, archery, horseback riding, motorboats, jet skis, and fancy schmancy stuff and just let us borrow Blob!
Alas, it wasn't to be. We were never allowed to be together! I have never recovered completely from the pain. *Sniffle*
Hilarious!! I have to meet you some day. Your posts just brighten my day with laughter. Thanks for the fun!
ReplyDeleteTricia Knapp
Oh, glorious blob, I have never met you. Please open up your heart and let me in. Let your sun kissed colors draw me closer to you. As a child flys through the air let him please part the waters so I can find my way to you. I have longed for this day when I meet you face to face. My heart is empty fill it with your air of joy. Till we meet. Humbly yours.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked at Eagle Lake Camp in Colorado Springs, I wanted to be baptized off the blob. My boss said no. It's been 18 years and I still haven't been baptized.
ReplyDeleteI'm laughing so hard through my nose I think my sinuses might fall out! (My parents are asleep in the next room so I must be polite and not use the usual boisterous laugh, or I wouldn't be laughing for too long.)
ReplyDeleteOh thank you for this.
Thank you for the love of blob. (I myself have only seen them used in movies such as Richie Rich where they catapult onto one, but I have always dreamed of landing on a blob.)
5,7,5 Blob haiku
ReplyDeleteShe bounce, bounce-sheba
Blub, blub, blub, have no blob, blog
She bounce, bounce-sheba
Blobbed, blobber, blogbee
Oh blob-dee, oh blog-dah dah
Blog-less life goes on…
This is hilarious. I loved the blob at camp. It was so much fun, even though I could rarely stay on long enough to get bounced back off haha.
ReplyDeleteGreat job, I love all of your posts.
I never fit on the blob.... Im too big:(
ReplyDeletematty, I'm laughing so hard I'm crying! Thanx, I needed that today! :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE THE BLOB!
ReplyDeleteBut please... cutting down the ropes course is a bit over-the-top, don't you think? Especially if it has a zip line. :-)
Dude, did you go to our church camp? Camp Adventure in North Webster, IN...when I saw the picture of the blob, I about started hyperventilating. That is one thing I did not want to try as the counselor.
ReplyDeleteMy family and I are leaving for family camp on July 19th. We'll have six days of blobbing ahead of us.
ReplyDeleteI'll be sure to say "HI" for all of you.
Is that the blob at Camp Mishemokwa????!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete