Date: August 14, 2010
Location: Plattekill, NY
1000
The heat and “dog days of summer” seem to have moved a bit to the south as we actually have gone a full day without air-conditioning running in our home. The temperature in the outdoors has hardly risen above 80 degrees and we are enjoying the break. I am not against a normal warm and even steamy summer, but I am spoiled and when in the north east I expect a few days of comfort thrown into my summer. I think those days have arrived, at least for a little while.
Our days have fallen into the normalcy of our retired rut of a life. We get up mid morning, read or play on the internet and then get ready for our tour on the registration desk. None of which is bad. Some of which is more fun than the other. Sitting still and doing nothing is not good for our life style, but dealing with the public can be bad for our temperament at times. I will not bore you with the tails of public animus we wander through at times. I will not pontificate on the self centered, lack of responsiblty, and stupidity that seems to have infiltrated the souls of many inhabitants on this earth. It is, however, at least interesting to watch the parade that passes before us evening after evening.
Last night I became the hero of the campground, at least to our manager and a soon to be happy camper. It seemed that the camper plugged in his motorhome and found that he had no power. I know the heat wave had relaxed a bit, but he thought that over the next week or so he might want to use something electric in his rig. As is our practice, upon hearing his complaint we dispatched our maintenance crew to test and repair his problem. After some in depth research, our maintenance man plugged in a little tester with lights, it was discerned that indeed there was no power at this gentleman’s site. We, as the registration desk, were requested to find a new site for the camper. Problems one and two now enter the picture. Problem one was that the camper did not want to move. Problem two was that, as a full campground, we did not have any proper place to move him except our less than perfect overflow area. Bummers all around.
I am not an electrician, but when a once working plug no longer works it is usually a simple problem to fix. Change the socket, tighten the wire, throw the circuit breaker, or maybe even replace a little wire. All of these chores are not too exciting and kind of in my ability range so I asked if I might investigate the problem a little closer. I love little devices that have lights and that blink different colors, but I have found them very useless in fixing anything. With a multi-meter, a screwdriver and a pair of pliers in hand off to battle I went. The wires looked tight and proper, the plug looked tight and proper and I had power coming into the box where power should be coming in to the box. The circuit breaker, however, looked very sick and very loose fitting. The talent it takes to change a circuit breaker is that you must yank the plastic thing out of its socket, loosen one wire, replace the defective plastic cartridge with a new one, tighten the wire and slide the whole thing back into place. For this I became a hero. One happy camper, one happy campground and one manager with a smile because she saved the money of having a high priced “technician” dispatched to do the same thing I did for free.
As a reward for my heroism I was presented with a thank you note and some KOA cash. It was a nice thank you and I did appreciate the thought. I am still not sure why it was so special, but I said thank you anyways. I have decided that I will give the KOA cash to my wife to spend in the store, because while I was playing outside she had to man the registration desk alone on a Friday evening. I guess it is normal that the person doing most of the work is never where the spot light shines, but mom’s and wives are probably used to that fact.
Last night, I got to play, the campground has a new happy camper and has saved some money and my wife is going to get a New York City T-Towel. I guess it was a pretty good evening after all
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