Growing up I always looked forward to summer camp and every year I would beg to go for the whole summer ... unfortunately my parents liked me too much to have me gone so long ...


the first camp I started going to was Camp Hollywoodland ... it was an inner-city sleep away camp in Griffith Park near the Hollywood sign ... it was fabulous ... a whole week away from home ... swimming and crafts and archery ... like a big slumber party ... the movie Piranha was actually filmed at the camp ...


a couple years after I started going to Camp Hollywoodland I also started going to The Big Bear Tennis Ranch up near Big Bear Lake ... obviously a little more ritzy playing tennis and all ... I grew to like it better because camp session were 2 weeks rather than one ... so I got to stay for longer ...


the summer before my senior year in high school I took a job as a camp counselor at The Big Bear Tennis Ranch ... my tennis was alright but not the caliber to teach others ... most of the campers would have kicked my ass ... so I took a job teaching arts and crafts ... it was awesome ... my first day there I met a girl named Tami and we were instantly friends ... totally inseparable ... like we had known each other our whole life ... she was from Arizona and I from California ... so after the summer ended we did all we could to visit each other as often as possible ...


as much as I loved Tami ... she as quickly as I ... will admit on occasion she could be a bit flighty ... so when I was running late to pick her up at the airport in Los Angeles I started to panic ... she had never been there so before she left I had told her "no matter what time you land ... wait at your gate and I will meet you there ... with traffic I might be running late" ...


as I walked into the airport I saw on the monitor that her plane had already arrived ... I raced to get in line at the metal detector fearing she started to wander around LAX to try and find me ... when my turn approached to walk through the metal detector ... the buzzer went off ...


this huge, cuddly, black woman running the metal detector said ... "darling I believe your belt set off the detector ... could you please remove it?"


I wasn't thinking about myself or my attire at all ... I was just worried Tami left the gate and it would take us an hour to find each other ... therein lies my mistake ... for I was wearing "sack jeans" ... ya know the ones in the 80's "just cinch it" ... 5 sizes too big with a belt below the belt loops holding them together ...


without the slightest vision of what was to come I whipped off my oversized riveted belt to have these huge pants drop to my ankles ... there had to be 30 people in line behind me ... and I just stood there in a cropped t-shirt and my underwear ... the security woman said "my honey you sure have lost a lot a weight there" ...


as I bent over to pull up my jeans ... through the laughter I could hear Tami's laugh loud and clear as she cried out ... "my oh my Lizzie now that is a welcome if I have ever seen one" ...