2009 Spring Retreat: Cody the Nut-Thrower

In March 2009, I attended my church's spring youth retreat for the first time. I had high expectations, but I never imagined that in addition to providing fun and enjoyment, this trip would also produce a dramatic saga of mythic proportions. Granted, I wasn't even there for most of it, but I took ownership of the legendary memories nonetheless, recording them in detail in my journal. I knew that I wanted to remember all of this, but what I did not forecast was that eight years later, I would write a blog post about Cody the Nut-Thrower and the damsel he put in distress.

It all started in the church parking lot. I wasn't there. My sister and I had a basketball game that evening, so our dad took us to the retreat center a couple hours late. After we arrived, we had quiet time and small group, and then everyone went out to the portico to play a game. Jared, one of my youth leaders, nominated me as our team's captain. My first duty was to select a name. An older boy, whom I had never met before, pleaded and begged for us to name the team "The Dinos." No one else's suggestions appealed to me, so I placated this over-enthusiastic individual and declared that we would be The Dinos.

My second duty as captain was to sit in a chair, submit my face to a cool whip mask, and let my teammates pelt me with cheeseballs. That new boy, Cody, was the one who spread the cool whip on my face, and he was very enthusiastic about throwing the cheeseballs and trying to make them stick. I wondered who he was and where he had come from, and I never found out. He didn't appear to be there as anyone's guest, and I'm not sure if he ever visited the youth group on Sunday mornings. As far as I know, he was present for this retreat and then vanished off the face of the earth. But oh, what a mark he made in his limited, mysterious appearance!

The following day was full of adventures. We played a game where teams lined up and took turns bobbing for gummy worms in aluminum dishes filled with flour and water. And by 'we,' I mean that other people played while I ran off wailing to a female leader to gain exemption. Also, because the leaders had left the previous night's cool whip and cheeseball mash to dry on the cement, the owner came over the next day to insist that we clean it up. I was one of the kind souls who assisted, but I didn't mind too much, because only nice people volunteered to help, and it made for enjoyable company.

In the evening, after a rousing game of spoons, I went upstairs to my bunk area, joining my sister and our friends. Our childhood friend Nicole was sending an email to her mother, and it included information about her recent sufferings. Apparently, ever since the beginning of this trip, Cody had been plaguing Nicole. Her younger sister, Christy, powerfully resented the fellow and refused to call him by his given name, because she had loved and lost a cat named Cody. The name of her venerated favorite cat was far too special to use upon this male nuisance, so she exclusively called him "What's-his-face."

            Nicole told me and my sister that in the church parking lot, when Cody was looking for a van to ride in, he approached the one that Nicole and Christy sat in with friends Hannah and Michelle. "I don't have anywhere to sit, and I don't know many people," he said as he came in. Then he looked into the back and said, "I know you guys!" He went and sat between Hannah and Nicolle, whom he had never met before. 

During the drive, when Hannah opened her purse, he spotted gum. "Can I have a piece?" When she begrudgingly granted his request, he told her that everyone else in the van wanted one too, and took it upon himself to pass out the gum. Then he announced, "One girl dropped hers and wants more!"

After that, he started talking about inappropriate topics, but then he trailed off and said, "Oh, I shouldn't talk about this... There are little kids in the car." (In my journal, I noted that I would have "slapped him upside the head for that remark." Fortunately for everyone else, I was off playing basketball.)

Later, Cody asked Nicolle if she had a cell phone. Nicole wasn't sure what to say, because she didn't want to lie, but she didn't want anyone borrowing her new iPhone either. As she hesitated, Cody cried, "Do you have a cell phone? You know? A cellular device?"

"Don't you have one?" Hannah asked.

"She needs to call her mom!" Cody said, pointing at another girl, whose mother happened to be chaperoning in another vehicle.

After they arrived at the retreat center, they were finally free of him, but he soon resumed his irritating behaviors, following Nicolle around and making a nuisance of himself. The entire situation baffles me. Cody was exactly the kind of cute, outgoing, shallow, annoying guy that the preppy girls in the youth group loved. Why, when they were actively flirting with and admiring him, would he fix unwanted affections upon Nicolle, a soft-spoken, practical girl who wanted nothing to do with him? (At least, we presume that he liked her. There is no other satisfying explanation for why he would be such a nuisance.)

At one of the meals, Cody approached the table where Nicole sat with Christy, Hannah, Michelle, and me. When he started to pull out the chair she had saved for my sister, Nicole threw herself across the table and screamed, "NO!" Looking slightly shell-shocked by her own outburst, she added, "That seat is reserved!"

On Saturday afternoon, while I was inside playing spoons with people and having my own adventures (fortunately memorable and special, otherwise I'd more deeply regret having missed out on this scene), Nicole, Christy, Hannah, Michelle, and my sister played outside in the rain, wearing ponchos. Cody began to follow them. He verbally teased the girls, and then he started picking up acorns off the ground and flinging them at the group.

They asked him to stop, but he just laughed and kept throwing nuts at them. My sister said, "You really might not want to do this..."

"Why not?" he laughed.

"Because she, she, she, and she are black belts," she answered, pointing to each of her four companions.

"Well, I'm a nut-thrower!" he declared.

Then Hannah – meek, gentle, quiet and reserved Hannah – flew into his face with a round kick. He dropped the nuts and skedaddled, looking over his shoulder in fear.

It would be nice to say that this was the end of the story, but alas, it was not. The following day, when we were collecting at "the worship barn" for our final session, he was right ahead of me in line. I joined my roommates in a pew, taking the seat they had saved for me, and I watched him cut in front of other people to sit at the end of the row behind us, where he could kick Nicole's seat throughout the entire service. 

Afterwards, we loaded up in vans to head home, and he mercifully ended up in a different vehicle. I don't know if any of us ever saw Cody again, but we will never forget him as long as we live.