Alyssa Ladd - Busted at Jesus Camp 

 

Growing up as a kid, I went to summer camp, evangelical Christian summer camp, for a month every summer, for 10 summers in a row. It was exactly every stereotype you're thinking about right now. But I loved it. 

 

I was not evangelical Christian. I grew up Catholic. So, it was weird that I went there in the first place, but it had turned me into a freakishly religious kid. I was obsessed with the idea of being a better Christian than everyone else around me. [audience laughter] They had this award at the end of camp every year called the I'm third award, which meant that you put God first, other second and I'm third. So, essentially, it was who was the most holy and the most selfless. I wanted to win that goddamn award so bad. [audience laughter] 

 

So, because it's evangelical Christians, the main tenet of holiness is purity. And so, they're obsessed with purity. All forms of touching the opposite sex were off limits at camp. You could only give a three second side hug. So, only the side of you could touch their side. None of the good stuff in the front. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we just bought this whole purity package, like hook, line and sinker. I'm 14 years old this one summer. I'm trying to be the best Christian, the most pure, the most selfless. And this girl comes along, she's popular and pretty, so everyone listens to her. And she tells the entire camp that she's going to wait until her wedding day to have the first kiss of her life. Okay, do you understand that? She's up the ante. We've all signed a purity pledge, but she's not going to kiss anyone until at the altar on her wedding day. 

 

So, now this purity has become competitive. [audience laughter] And everyone else starts pledging. They're going to do the same thing. And like, how am I going to win this award if I don't do the same thing, right? But there's a problem and his name is Seth. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we've been boyfriend-girlfriend for three summers now. I'm not sure he had much to do with that. I just saw a very timid 12-year-old boy who was blonde and could do a backflip and I was just like, “Mine.” We're dating now. But here were three years later and we'd been spending the entire past year on AOL Instant messenger, talking every day, plotting how we were going to have our first kiss at camp that summer. 

 

So, here's how were going to do it. Once a summer they take you to a water park. And if our cabins could go on the same day, then one of those slides was for a two-person inner tube. If we could get in the same inner tube, then a few seconds of that ride [audience laughter] were enclosed. So, we were going to kiss. It was going to be our first kiss as a couple. His first kiss of his entire life. No pressure. We did not factor in how fast water slides are. [audience laughter] 

 

So, the minute or the second I turn around to kiss him, we both fall out of the tube. But he is still coming in hot for these lips, okay? [audience laughter] So, he bites my upper lip, draws blood. [audience laughter] Not romantic, but definite lip contact. [audience laughter] So, we counted it as a first kiss. [audience laughter] So, a week goes by, I hear nothing. And then, I hear over the whole camp intercom, “Alyssa Ladd come to the camp office.” I had to meet with the camp disciplinarian, who by the way is 23 years old. But it was very scary at the time. 

 

I'm freaking out, because I want to win this award. I've never been in trouble. I'm in goody two shoes. But I get there and he's nowhere to be seen. So, I'm like, “They don't know about this kiss.” And she's like, “We know about you and Seth.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “Don't panic. Just reveal nothing. She will tell you what she knows.” [audience laughter] Because that was a good freaking plan. There's no way anyone saw us on that water slide.

 

So, I just said to her, “Well, if we're both in trouble, where's Seth?” And she says, “Oh, well, Seth's not in trouble, because it's the girl who makes the boy stumble on his walk with the Lord.” I was like, “Okay, that sounds about right.” [audience laughter] And of course, she didn't know about the water slide. 

 

I was in trouble, because a counselor had seen Seth and I holding hands the night before and turned us in. She told me that holding hands with Seth was not saving myself or my future husband. And if we were caught fraternizing again, I and I alone would be in trouble and I would go to the Hilton, which is [audience laughter] the ironic name for the tent in the woods where you went if you were bad, [audience laughter] and you ran up and down hills and hosed out trash cans and worked in the kitchen.

 

And I was like, “Pretty sure God didn't have a problem with me holding hands.” But I really didn't want to go to the Hilton. [audience laughter] So, Seth and I broke up publicly. [audience laughter] I never did win the I'm third award, but Seth and I kissed like three more times at camp and I never got caught. [laughs]