Yeah - Nobody Likes You!

I've been blessed by the opportunity to help out at an Upward basketball camp this past week. Basketball + Jesus = the highest quality available, right?

Check out this scene: At the end of camp, non-Upward camp kids begin to filter in and mix with Upward Camp Kids. The Upward-Camp Kid (hereafter abbrievated as UCK) is one of the youngest, sweetest kids at the camp. He was super-stoked to have a 50 cent medal draped around his neck. Not from the rapper, but a gumball machine. He's always smiling, always does what you ask of him, and is generally an all-around good kid that is fun to be around.

While UCK is tossing is ball about 5 feet short of the 10 foot rim, a non-UCK yells at another non-UCK who is entering the gym. "Hey, Andrew, GO HOME!! NOBODY LIKES YOU!!"

A kid dressed in too-short shorts and too-big glasses looks up. This is presumably Andrew. He looks at the kid, frowns, and looks back at the floor - just catching his coke-bottle-glasses before they slide off his nose.

Sweet little UCK catches his ball and yells "YEAH ANDREW, NOBODY LIKES YOU!! GO HOME!!"

My eyes got as big as Andrew's glasses.

While another staff member took care of the kid who initially yelled at Andrew, and after I picked my jaw off the dilapidated gym floor, I called UCK over to me. He bounced over to me smiling and dribbling his basketball.

"Do you know Andrew?" I asked him.
"Nooooooo," he said, still smiling.
"Then why did you yell at him that no one likes him?" I asked.
The still-smiling UCK pointed at the kid who originally yelled and said - "Because he did."

I got on my knees to be eye level with UCK (thank you Nanny 911). Did you do that just to be like that other kid, I asked him. He nodded his head yes. I told him how stupid what he had done was and how hurtful it probably was to Andrew. I told him that just because somebody else did something didn't mean he should do it.

"If that guy ate poop, would you do it?"
"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww"
"See what I mean? Just because other people do stuff doesn't mean you should do it."

Amazed me as to what kids would do and how far they would go in order to be cool, or in the "in-crowd" (choose your cliche).