I miss going to lock-ins.
When I was in junior high, there was nothing more tantalizingly thrilling than being locked in a church basement all night with 30 other pubescent kids from other schools. There were so many opportunities for brutally awkward flirting. We could play board games and tell obnoxiously loud jokes (this was my specialty). We could play ping-pong and impress girls with our macho posturing and athletic prowess. We could find a small group of people having a deep 7th-grade level conversation and impress the girls with our sensitivity and sincerity. It was a veritable field day for hormonal 14 year olds, and all sanctioned by our local church. God had to approve.
I remember one memorable lock-in where our evening wound to a close around 4am when they pulled out a big screen television because some idiot thought that a group of wound-up 7th and 8th graders would appreciate the moral depth and complexity of The Mission starring Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons. This is an excellent movie, but for a group of kids hoping to see Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, it was probably not the perfect choice. I was watching the movie while laying in my sleeping bag next to my friend Nate when some girls that we had been talking to came and set their sleeping bags right next to ours, and so I stayed up late that night poking fun at the movie with the girls. As the movie played on and the the night wound down, every laugh of theirs signaled an important victory for me. I was on a roll that early morning. Life was momentarily sweet. If it hadn’t been for my gangly limbs and horrible acne, I might have actually gotten somewhere…
“I miss going to lock-ins.” The hell you say. As a youth counselor who has to work them, I assure you that they aren’t much fun.
Ah yes. I remember going to one of those in college with this girl from Crusade.
That was complicated.
Who came up with the concept of a lock-in anyway, and how
did they come to the decision that it was a good idea?
Auntie MareMare-
The lock in was devised by Cornelius MacGuillicuddy in 1817 and it is the finest idea ever conjured by human thinking.
Why did Cornelius do it? Did he have a bunch of young hormonal 14 year-olds living wildly out of control?
Ah, Lock-ins…that takes me back. Though I wasn’t into smiling and laughing at boys’ obnoxious jokes. I was out to demonstrate my athletic prowess….and win. Girls are better!
Ahhh lock-ins…I was at one of them this past weekend.
The best part is trying to convince all the younger middle school kids that the church is haunted…at 4 am.
It’s great fun.
Ahhh, lock-ins…
i remeber being cold and lonely while peering through windows at all the lock-outs I went to.