Now Worthless Camp Letter Arrives Moments after Phone Call Home

Short Hills, NJ (July 16, 2019) – The Rothsteins finally received a long-awaited letter home from their son, Jake, a junior boy at Camp Huron Lake, but unfortunately it arrived just a moments after hanging up from their one first half of the summer phone call with him.  For three weeks the Rothsteins, Jen and Gary, have eagerly anticipated hearing from their son only to have to rely on late night photo postings to determine how his first summer at his new home away from home is going. 

Jen, a 42 year-old homemaker, has made several trips to the mailbox on a daily basis for the past twenty or so days, including the day Jake was dropped off at the camp bus.  While awaiting Jake’s call between 1:30 to 3:00 pm, the couple reviewed their notes to ensure every one of their thirty-six questions would be answered and determined who would ask each question so they would both have equal phone time.  Naturally, Jake’s phone call arrived at approximately 2:56 giving the reunited family approximately four minutes to speak. 

Over a bad connection along with a tremendous amount of background conversations between other campers and parents, the Rothsteins were able to ascertain that Jake thought the food was good, his friends were good, the counselors were good, and things overall were good.  During such a short call, however, Jake was able to provide his parents a fairly robust list of items for them to bring up on Visiting Day. Moments after a rushed good-bye in which Jake maniacally squeezed in two “I love you’s” and six “the counselor says I have to go’s” within just eight seconds, Jen made the first of her twice daily (just in case the mailman forgot something) pilgrimages to the mailbox. 

“I opened the mailbox and it was like a beautiful light was coming from inside.  I reached my hand in and grabbed the stack of mail.  Under the Front Gate catalog and nestled inside the Clipper Coupon Magazine was a postcard from my baby!” a gleeful Jen explained. 

She quickly rushed inside to show Gary the card with checkboxes used to convey what Jake thought of different aspects of camp.  After quickly scanning the four checks and his name hastily scribbled, the Rothsteins realized the correspondence almost exactly mimicked their phone call a minute or two earlier.

“Wow.  That was f#$%n’ worthless, wasn’t it?” Gary lamented as his wife did a handwriting analysis on the card to ensure none of his check marks were fabricated by a senior staff member of the camp.