The Prodigal Son

No lice...no ticks...no bathing and no brushing of the teeth. He changed his clothes half the time and his underwear a third of the time. He arrived filthy  and the picture to the left doesn't do the filth justice. The first words out of his mouth? "It's impossible to keep track of your stuff at camp!" So, without further ado, let us get to the business at hand - The Happy Camper contest! After our celebratory dinner, we tucked the children into bed and turned our attention towards Miguel's backpack to do the inventory. You haven't really lived until you have had to touch soggy, dirty kid clothes. We laid all of the items out and compared them to the original spreadsheet. We each did an independent assessment of the items to make sure that the count was reliable. One of my more litigious readers contacted me last week to lay the groundwork for a legal challenge of the results based on the fact that I did not tell people that we sent money with Miguel so that he could buy souvenirs. He did buy 7 items: a sweatshirts for himself (which he left at camp), a guitar pick for me, a pencil for Luisa, and ping pong paddles and balls for him and his sister. However, to protect myself from liability, we did not count any of those items for the contest.

And now the drumroll....

Miguel lost one pair of shorts, one tank top and one pair of socks but came home with socks, shorts and a t-shirt that wasn't his. He also brought home a candle that another camper had given him. So, the total number of items that he brought home was - 90! The winning guess was the very last guess entered: 

After searching for an unused guess, mine is 90 items. But if I’m correct, I’d prefer to donate my gifts to charity. ~ Eliza

Congratulations Eliza! You won*! Thanks to all of you for playing. I loved reading all of the comments. Let's do it again next summer, shall we? 

*And for those of you who are ready to cry foul (I'm looking at one of you in particular), I did not simply choose Eliza as the winner because she didn't want a prize (though that is a nice perk since I hadn't decided on a prize).