#93. Riding on the cool van in youth group.
Mar 30th by JonI wish I could say that church youth groups were a safe haven from gossip and cliques and all the other things that make high school so gross. But they weren’t and one of the most nerve wracking times in any youth group member’s experience was when you got divided up for the van ride to retreats. Right now you’re doubting me, but I promise you, waiting in that parking lot while they assigned seats was like getting ready to jump out of an airplane to skydive. If you got in the van with the dorky kids, the ones who played complicated card games and sang Jesus songs the whole way, camp was going to stink for you. That’s because teenagers will make a private joke out of anything so by the time you got where you were going, the other van kids would be saying stuff like, “Remember what Bill said at that gas station? That was awesome.” And you’d ask what he said, trying to distance yourself from your troop of losers and they’d say, “Oh never mind, you had to be there.” Or worse, they’d just say something like, “Polka dot radishes” and laugh. You’d want to laugh but you couldn’t because your van sang Veggie Tales songs the whole way (oh where is my hairbrush?) and there’s nothing funny about that.
Comments
Wow. This is the story of my life. It is so funny because I thought only my youth group was guilty of the cool-van dorky-van drama. It seemed like sometimes I was on the cool bus, but sometimes it seemed like I helped make the dorky bus dorky.
Oh well, I will always be a die-hard fan of Veggie Tales.
I’m gonna have to disagree. Where is my hairbrush is funny. I mean, when we’d be on the way to youth camp, we’d drink grape Crush, play cards and… WAIT! NO! AAAAaaaiiiieee!!!
wow – you know, I have no idea who you are from Adam (haven’t checked out your other sites yet) but you are hilarious. KILLING me. I found your site through a friend of a friend…etc..etc…and wow. You’ve taken me back 15 years to the youth days…so true this riding in the popular – albeit just as broken down as the other ones – van.
ps: yeah – I’ve been reading through all the archives today (if you .. um .. couldn’t tell) and commenting a ton. Don’t worry – I’m harmless…just enjoying the site.
Sad day; this sounds so much like my high school group that it’s scary(this really happens at other churches?). Ride in the wrong van or maybe not go on one of the Spring Retreat/Summer Mission trips and the cliques with cement themselves…with you not in them.
Oh so true…father Abraham, had many sons………
I totally would have preferred the Veggie Tales and complicated card games!
Oh it’s ALWAYS like this whereever I move to! (I’m a military daughter) And I usually end up on the “dork bus” or sitting with the “quiet kids” cause I’m the nice, cool kid who can’t say “no, I promised I’d sit with *insert friends name here*”
“Teenagers will make a private joke of anything”
I think it’s an unwritten teenage rule that for every long trip you take or special event you attend (usually involving a somewhat long trip), there must be at least one inside joke that springs up during the trip/event or it’s not a cool trip.
The worst thing that can happen with those inside jokes is if you WERE there, but you still don’t get the inside joke. Maybe you were spacing out or listening to another conversation on the bus/van, but all of a sudden you hear hysterical laughter in the back, and you’re wondering what just happened.
We only have one van, so we really don't have this problem.
I rode on the cool van most of the time. Great post! By the way, I've decided to read them all, and I started with number one yesterday; I'm doing pretty good so far.
This is so true! I should know, I instigate the Veggie Tales sing-a-thons.
I don’t know about you guys, but that dorky van sounds awesome! I want to hang out with those dorky teens!!!!
But I admit, in my less self-confident youthful foolishness, I always tried to ride in the cool van.
god god (gosh) I found this site and I have shook my head and laughed along with so many of your entries and then there is this one…did you read my memory or something??? did you go to Rancho Bernardo Community Church, Presbyterian? in 1985 our summer youth trip was called "Caravan" 'cuz we took 3 vans and took a road trip up the coast of California. We had our signature van with the church logo on the side, the back up van was, well our back up van and the third was a rental. When the chips felled where they may, I was in the rental and the only thing I can remember about that trip is that I listened to A-ha and Howard Jones over and over again on my Sony Walkman!
Get out of my head, brother!
Guilty as charged and spent my YG time in the warm bosom of the cool kid nucleus. The best was one of the excursions had a cool kids parents driving their camper. No, it was not at all fun to sit in the pod above the drivers seat and look out at the road and giggle the trip away. No, I didn't know that all other vehicles were crammed with kids just sick with envy at our comfort and exclusivity and loosey-goosey parental supervision. The wonderful parents who drove did insist that it be just girls, and we didn't know about making deeper pink (or red?) then, so wholesomeness prevailed. Except for pretending not to know how much everybody else wanted to be riding in the camper. If you can't infiltrate the cool kids in high school and you do at YG, it sort of takes the sting away till you can get older and get over yourself.
Youth group was worse than high school. I was actually cool in high school, but dorky in youth group at the same time… Not sure how that happened.
Hm. I usually just sleep, or take my hearing device off so I don't have to listen to the car noises. I'd also rather just think in my head. In my world of silence (being a hearing/deaf hybrid). And yet, I'm not really anti-social, I just… I think I just fear having to ask people to repeat themselves. It's really depressing for me sometimes. Sorry, I ranted.
Severely dorky at high school, dangerous revolutionary at youth group (I actually read theology, church history and scriptural analysis in my spare time, causing me to ask extremely awkward questions). Very few people wanted to sit next to me in either sphere.
Inside jokes are cruel. They're one of the many things I'm ashamed I did as a kid–now that I can see what they do to other kids.
As a youth group kid and now 23 year old youth group leader, I've found that this anxiety never leaves. Even now when I'm driving/co-piloting the van, I have that mini-panic attack at the kids start choosing where to sit. The last retreat we went on with high schoolers I somehow ended up in charge of the "cool" van. I thought of this post and laughed. And was immediately thankful I did not have to listen to kids argue about the rules of whatever game they were playing or tune out teenage voices singing off key Veggie Tales. At our church, for the most part the "cool van" is also the quiet van.
This is so true. Cliques are a reality in youth groups, just like everywhere else. The inside jokes were the worst. Fortunately, I managed to be on the inside of most of them, but I know it sucked for those on the out.
This may be covered later on in the blog, but remember the "Hand Check" or "Rapture Check" while riding on the church bus/van (usually done while riding during the night)? The lights inside the bus would come on, the youth pastor (usually the driver) would yell "Hand Check" and the youth would have to hold up their hands to prove they weren't holding hands with the opposite sex… Ahhh those were the days…
Luckily for me, We only had one van at the churches I went to as an adolescent… and now that I'm almost out of the youth group age, I get to ride in separate vehicles with the other older kids. (SCORE!)
My youth group now has two vans and most of the time it's girls and boys… so it takes out the cool vs. dorky equation. I can certainly relate to this though, I've seen it happen to many another and am thankful God spared me of it. =D