Signs that should have told me that I'm gay . . .

I don't know what brought this up, but I was thinking about this yesterday and thought I'd share it.

When my two oldest children were just toddlers, I was called to be the Young Men's president in my ward.  As such, I felt I should go to Boy Scout leadership training as I really didn't know much about the program - having only made it to 2nd class scout myself as a boy.

I don't know how they do it now, but at the time it was a 6 week course meeting once per week.  The adults were organized into patrols, just like the boys are in a troop, and we worked together as a patrol throughout the training culminating in an overnight campout.  I was a member of the Frog patrol and we we would greet each other by saying "ribbet" whenever we met.

One thing they did (for what purpose I do not know) was bring an old shovel to the training that had a crack in the blade; and, each week they'd gave it to a different patrol who was to bring it back the following week "improved" in some way.  Now, I suspect those leading the training were thinking that someone might repair it by welding the crack.  When it was my patrol's turn, I volunteered to take it home.  With my wife's help, I painted a woman's face on the blade of the shovel with big red lips drawn around the crack in the blade and yarn for hair.

Towards the end of the training, each patrol prepared for the campout which included cooking dinner together.  I convinced my patrol that we should something different than the traditional scout fare; so, as the other patrols were eating their foil dinners, we laid out a table cloth, complete with cloth napkins, candle sticks, and a small vase with flowers as we dined on deli sandwiches and drank sparkling cider from plastic wine glasses - we made sure to have a bottle of Grey Poupon prominently displayed..

Thinking back at the ease at which I talked my patrol into this, methinks I wasn't the only orientationally challenged person in the frog patrol.