Be Prepared (to do Nothing)

Tonight’s Boy Scout Troop meeting was even more insufferable than the typical meeting, which is saying a lot. One bright spot was that Sam was commended by the Scoutmaster for dipping the Troop flag during the opening ceremony (which most people forget to do) and he did a good job learning about the Bowline knot (see picture above). But it was downhill from there. Thirty minutes doing absolutely nothing while the Senior Patrol Leader tried to figure out what was going on the following week at the “Open House”. Sometimes he would take a break from doing nothing to chastise the Scouts for making too much noise; then go back to doing nothing again, once everyone had quieted down suitably. After this, they broke out into small groups to do absolutely nothing for the remaining 45 minutes. Dad’s job was to supervise one of the groups and tell them every 5 minutes or so what they were supposed to be doing, immediately after which they would return to doing nothing. Somehow there was still more nothing to be done at the end of the meeting, so it went 15 minutes long for the 20 minute closing ceremony.