We Be Loyal Scouts

Fish out of water, much?

So.

I'm a Webelos Assistant Den Leader.

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and laugh. Get it out of your system. I mean it is SO ME, right? The woman who played Mrs. Darbus. The woman who conceived of the Domestic Diva Blogger to cover the fact that she can't blog about gardening or homemaking (even though, in theory, that's what she does for a living), or sewing, or crafts, or how to build a house out of recycled tires, or how to crochet a mini-van cozy–BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T HAVE THE GENE FOR ANY OF IT.

Right. They picked me to be a Webelos leader. 

I say "picked" because that's how it's done around here. Our scouting program is affiliated with our church, and our church has a lay-ministry. Which means we get to volunteer to serve when our church leaders tell us to. Ask us to. That's what I meant. Because I could have said no. But then I'm pretty sure that when the Big One hits this region (which everyone says it will, and soon) my house would be the only one left not standing. Specifically my bedroom. More specifically my bed. Just my side.

So, I said yes.

Kill me now.

The Webelos (which does indeed stand for "We['ll] Be Loyal Scouts") program is the most astonishing example of Too Many Cooks I have ever seen in my life. And there's no real training on it. Oh yeah. The BSA has a video you can look at. But its main job is to tell you that YOU'D BETTER NOT PAT THOSE SCOUTS ON THE BACK TOO MANY TIMES OR STAND TOO CLOSE, AND THERE'D BETTER BE TWO OF YOU IN THEIR PRESENCE AT ALL TIMES OR YOU'RE GOING TO JAIL, MISSY! Other than that, no. It doesn't actually take you through the program and tell you how to run it.

Instead, you are given a Fat Manual, along with at least two other Fat Binders to help you out. These helpful handbooks are also known respectively as: Here's-the-List-Of-Every-Activity-Badge-That-Anyone-Who-Has-Ever-Been-Remotely-Connected-With-Webelos-Has-Come-Up-With-Plus-Some-More-Along-With-The-Actual-Requirements-Plus-Some-More, and Wait-There's-More, followed by Hey-I-Just-Thought-Of-More.

I would like to take these helpful scouting materials and introduce them to the side of Lord Baden Powell's scouty British head. Except the founder of Scouting, bless him, is no longer with us. For quite a while now. Clearly he took the coward's way out when he saw what his progeny of scouting enthusiasts was doing with his program.

People like me can't handle all of this information. Our right brains constitute the ENTIRETY of our brains, and there is no room for left-brained things like scouting. Not to mention, they expect us to wrangle a bunch of ten year-old vagrants boys out in nature. Keeping them from leaping off rock ledges, taking sips of waterfalls, making friends with mountain lions, and burying each other alive in never-before-seen Spanish Explorer caves.

I can't do that! I listen to classical music. I go out into nature only when it calls. Shopping for Shoes is my High Adventure, and the only knot I know how to tie is the one that resulted in my stretch marks. Four times.

I don't have much choice, though, do I? I guess I'll learn. I'm sure that very soon I shall be able to smile at the little . . . er . . .  nice young man who glared at me in our last meeting and yelled "I HATE Webelos!" I'll have our den of blue-shirts hi-ho-ing off on deep mountain hikes and pinewood Derby-ing and Blue and Gold Banquet-ing and Sportsman-Badge-ing faster than you can say—

Hey! Maybe we can paint their toenails! Indian warpaint, right?

Right?

*whimper*