In our house, it’s the time of year when kids stop complaining about school and start complaining about summer camp.

“Ugh,” my son says as he hops out of the car to go swimming and crafting and playing on playgrounds.

It seems like a sweet gig to me, but maybe that’s because when I was a kid, I went to the summer camp from hell.

Now, it was an unusual camp in many ways, chiefly in that it was run, in Greece, by a group of Evangelical Christians. Fully 90% or more of Greece’s population is Greek Orthodox, and I’m sure that number was even higher then. Non-Orthodox Christians are seriously going against the grain, and I guess they also decided to go against the grain in terms of the fun activities common at summer camps.

Each day at this sleepaway camp, we were awoken at 7 a.m., not by music or trombones but by counselors spraying us with water mixed with perfume. As they did this, they giggled maniacally, effectively destroying any misapprehension that it was intended as anything other than entertainment for the adults running the place.

“Stop!” we’d scream, covering ourselves with sheets. “We’re up, we’re up!”

The real losers were the kids in the top bunks, which were impossible to quickly escape. The spritzing continued until we could scramble into the bathroom to dress.

Once we had been properly shocked into consciousness, we headed to the cafeteria for breakfast.

Now, I was an American kid, so my breakfast expectations included eggs, bacon, pancakes — at least cereal and milk. Instead, we had just two choices: tea and toast.

I accepted the tea with a look of confusion, for an adult had never before offered me a hot caffeinated beverage. The last thing my parents wanted was to keep me awake.

And lest you get the wrong idea, by “toast,” I do not mean thick bread covered in cheese, butter or avocado. It was a meager, penitentiary slice, lightly smeared with margarine and accompanied by a brown jelly of indeterminate fruit origin.

I looked around at the other campers, who didn’t seem put off.

“Kids must not eat in Greece,” I thought.

Now, as in any good correctional institution, there was a commissary selling chips and candy, but I didn’t have money for that. My parents didn’t consider the possibility that I would be extorted for nourishment.

Instead, my chief memory of the camp is of sitting in an interminable series of church services, stinking of perfume, with a rumbling stomach, waiting for lunch.

Church was held in a catacomb-dark medieval chapel, the kind I was accustomed to from Greek Orthodox services. But like most Greek Orthodox people, I was also accustomed to exiting that church into the light of day after a reasonable period of time.

There, though, the pastor droned on for hours, and we dozed, heads slumping onto each other’s shoulders, only to be periodically shouted awake once he noticed we were out.

Between homilies, we were allowed outside to play, in a field near the chapel.

In that dirt churchyard, I made friends — real friends.

It was a tight, “Shawshank Redemption” bond, and when the two weeks of camp were over, I cried saying goodbye to my cellmates.

“It’s over!” we sobbed, clinging to each other, realizing that we’d never cross paths again. But, really, it was for the best. Why on earth would we want to remember summer camp?

When my parents asked how camp was, I shuddered.

“Let’s never speak of it again,” I said.

In short, my kids will have to forgive me if I’m less than sympathetic to their camp complaints.

Listening to them come home, grousing about how the line at the amusement park for the bumper cars was too long, I’m tempted to give them a taste of my summer camp experience.

All I’d need for that craft project is perfume, a spray bottle and a really strange sense of humor.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.