Counselors Quarantine Homesick Campers

CAMP WALLALONGABANKA, MN—Counselors at Wallalongabanka Sleep-Away Camp say a potentially dangerous outbreak of homesickness has been contained in Mallard Cabin, where campers infected by "sudden acute attacks of missing their parents" were safely quarantined Saturday before the disease could spread.

"We believe the disease arrived in a box of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, which we have since isolated," said Mallard Cabin group leader Mike Essl, who oversaw the 2002 treatment of a campfire ghost-story-related outbreak of the heebie-jeebies. "Once you see the first couple of chins quivering, you gotta hustle them off quick to the cabin furthest from the craft shack."

Essl confirmed that the bodies of the four campers who succumbed to the homesickness outbreak were incinerated according to CDC guidelines.