Camp counselors have a unique ability to make an impact wherever they go. Sometimes that impact comes through ministry, relationships, and serving others. Other times… well, you’ll see.

If you’ve never worked at camp, you may not fully understand this. Camp counselors run on very little sleep, a lot of energy, and whatever food they can grab between activities. So when our Beulah on the Road team arrived at Grace Church in Middleburg Heights and found out there was a snack room full of free food just for us, it felt like we had struck gold.

This wasn’t just a sad little table with a few granola bars sitting on it.

This was a full snack room.

Fresh fruit. Fruit snacks. Candy. Granola bars. Chips. Drinks. Basically, everything a tired counselor could dream of after a long day.

Naturally, I became a frequent visitor.

One evening, after playing a very chaotic game of Among Us in real life, a few of us decided we needed a snack.

There was only one problem.

The snack room was locked.

While everyone else was annoyed and standing around, I started thinking.

You know those old movies where somebody picks a lock with a tiny tool and suddenly becomes a genius?

I thought, “How hard could that be?”

Unfortunately, I did not have a tiny tool.

What I did have was a plastic fork.

And for reasons I still cannot fully explain, I decided that a plastic fork was basically the same thing.

So I walked up to the door, stuck the fork into the keyhole, and started wiggling it around with complete confidence.

For about three seconds.

Then…

Snap.

The fork broke.

And just like that, a piece of plastic was now stuck inside the lock.

So not only was the snack room still locked, but now I had also made the situation worse. Which is honestly a very special skill.

As I stood there looking at my masterpiece, the church janitor came around the corner with the keys.

The timing was so perfect it felt like it had been planned.

I quickly hid the broken fork behind my back, smiled politely, and tried to act like I was just a normal person who had not recently committed a crime against the snack room.

The janitor tried the key.

Nothing.

He tried again.

Still nothing.

At that point, the rest of the counselors were just getting more and more frustrated because the room still wouldn’t open.

Meanwhile, I was sitting nearby in the lunch room trying to look innocent, which is hard to do when you are literally the reason the door won’t open.

Eventually, I confessed to two counselors sitting with me.

They laughed at me.

Which, honestly, was fair.

One of them eventually went out to help the janitor and casually suggested that maybe, just maybe, there might be something stuck in the keyhole.

A shocking theory, I know.

A few minutes later, I heard the best sound in the world from down the hall.

Click.

And just like that, the snack room was saved.
The counselors cheered.
The snacks were accessible again.

I would like to clarify that I have not been trusted with a key-related task since.