This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Last week, I participated in a dark religious ritual to remind me of my declining mortal nature and help me understand that my time on Earth is coming to an end.

It must have worked, because for two days I actually looked forward to being dead.

It began innocently enough, with a text from my bishop asking for help. He must have been desperate if he was trolling the bottom of the ward's labor pool.

Me: "If it's Scout camp again, I'd rather go to hell."

Him: "I promise it's not Scout camp."

It was girls camp. After several more texts, I was able to negotiate two days at girls camp in exchange for his promise to speak on my behalf at the Judgment Bar.

All I had to do in turn was drive four teenage girls to camp, help out with service projects, go on a short hike, and in general hang around waiting to be of some use.

I wasn't too worried. I've raised three teenage daughters, performed grueling service projects, camped in terrible conditions, hiked with drunks, been in a car accident and a couple of riots, been injured in explosions, and had any number of experiences that should have prepared me for girls camp.

The first part of the estrogen camp consisted of me driving four teenage girls to a pleasant farm near Kamas. We weren't a mile from the church before I realized that something about me had changed. Noise bothered me more.

I once stood just feet from an amplifier at a Black Sabbath concert and thought bleeding from the ears was cool. I have fired guns ranging from .17 to bowling ball-caliber and all I got was a ringing in my ears for a week.

But there's something about groups of teenage girls larger than two that requires them to communicate in giddy shrieks loud enough to be heard on the *&#%@ moon.

It didn't help that a particularly loud girl was riding shotgun. In order to participate in the conversation in the backseat, she had to turn partway around and scream her contribution back over her shoulder, directly into my right ear.

By the time we arrived at camp, I had used a pencil to ramrod a set of foam hearing protectors and some Wendy's salt & pepper packets into both ears.

At camp, the four girls immediately became 40 girls who carried on 60 different conversations simultaneously. With the hearing protectors and sufficient distance, it sounded like seagulls at the dump.

The short hike turned out to be relative. It was short if you were 15 and weighed 65 pounds. It took forever if you were pushing 65 and weighed the same as a bison.

It rained on the hike. There was a time in my life when I could (and did) fall asleep in the rain. It wasn't so bad, either.

On Tuesday, rain just made my clothes heavier and me more tired. I finally flopped down on the trail and let gravity roll me to the bottom. I took a nap on the way down.

Back at the camp, the girls waited until dark before covering their faces with toothpaste and going on a snipe hunt. I have no idea if they found any because I went to bed.

I didn't sleep immediately. I hurt too much for that. I laid awake long enough to ponder the value of the ritual.

In less than a minute I had concluded that the closer the Angel of Death gets, the less scary he seems.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby.