Date: October 13, 2010
Location: Plattekill, NY
1000
The personal effect of discordant bio-rhythms is not a comfortable state of mind. It is not a pleasant situation and it makes the whole experience of living a calm, enjoyable, uneventful life suck. Sometimes ka-ka happens and the stench gets all over you and it really is not your fault. Welcome to my world.
Our day started much like most other days. It was a simple morning of reading, sipping coffee, and casually surfing the net for any monumental news of interest. It was a very normal beginning to our day. As the afternoon approached, Connie and I began our ritual of getting ready to venture into the world of KOA reservations and registrations. We had just completed the Columbus Day weekend with very few moments of hysteria and figured that this day at the office was to be very peaceful and extremely uneventful. Most of the campers had hooked up their camping equipment and were now safely on the crowded roads heading to their respective real homes. We easily were being lulled into a false sense of pending boredom and solitude in an empty office and vacated campground. We did not know that our path to evening rest was to take a detour through the Twilight Zone.
Our first indication of a bumpy detour from our expected path to calmness was noticed, but somewhat ignored as we stepped out of our home and began our short walk to work. There was a large 5th wheel camper parked right in front of our motorhome. After a few questions and a very minor excursion into investigation, it seemed that he had been assigned to site 17 and there was already a camper on site 17. The site next to us was site 16 and it was empty. It appears that some people are smart enough to buy a camper and almost intelligent enough to drive it to their destination, but they still can’t count. The camper on site 17 should have been on site 16 and then our new friend would have had a place to park his camper. Oh well, they were only off by one. Everyone agreed that a simple swap in the campground computer could fix this problem and Connie and I stepped even further into the world of discordant bio-rhythms.
As we entered our office to begin our evening tour, we could not help but notice that our “ambassador” was having a long and frustrating discussion with our assistant manager. I guess there had been a few unhappy campers during the long holiday weekend and she had fielded many of the frivolous complaints. Problems like “the movie was too loud”, “there was a skunk” someplace on the campground, and “why did I have to pay for my weekend? Didn’t you owe me money?” Our ambassador was obviously frustrated and our assistant manager was having even less fun. The movie has to be loud or no one could hear it and it was over with long before quiet hour. There may have been a skunk someplace on the campground, but gee this is a campground in the woods and that is why the campers come here. DUH! And, seldom do we give away camping nights. This is a business and if we don’t make any money we won’t be a business very long. It was time for Rob to come on duty and time for the day manager to run for the hills. Step 2, 3, and 4 into the Twilight Zone.
My first on duty chore was to balance the safe and count the present money in it. For some reason I counted the 2 stacks of 5 dollar bills that are always grouped in piles of 20 bills as 1 hundred dollars not the 2 hundred dollars they really were. This is not a big problem, but it means the safe did not balance the first time I counted it and I had to count it again. Funny, but when you count all of the money it comes out just fine.
Next, I had to verify and count the proceeds of the morning crew. That was not even close and I did count everything. After a second and third counting it seems that the morning crew decided not to count everything. This meant that the money was close, but off by just a bit. “Oh well, Rob can fix it. I have to bolt out of this place like my pants are on fire.” Rob did fix it and pulled a few more lonely hairs from his balding head.
Now it was time to try and explain to a customer that you do indeed have to pay to camp here. You can not try and confuse a compassionate woman that the money you paid 2 years ago should have been applied to a camping excursion this weekend. And it really does not matter if the wind was blowing east to west 3 years ago while you wanted it to be still, or some other meaningless garbage. After a full hour of digging through old records, comparing computer receipts with faded old paper records and listening to entirely too much BS the customer finally agreed that maybe our very thorough records were correct, but….! And there is always a but in this customer’s life.
While my life is wallowing in Ka-K,a my wife is trying to serve the mass of humanity that has invaded the front desk. As she is facing problems that she is having trouble solving, she realizes that I can not be of any assistance to her because I am in the middle of my own world war 32. So much for a calm and uneventful, boring evening. What else can go wrong?
Our manager decided to stop in and check on us. It may have been a mistake on her part, but a welcome happening on our part. As we were attempting to bring her up to date on the fun and excitement that we have been having, a gentleman came into the office and informed us that a motorhome is hung up on a rock in our campground and he can’t get unstuck. Why not? It has been that kind of evening. To simplify a really dumb stunt by a geriatric that probably should not have a driver’s license. This Twilight Zone denizen decided to make a 120 plus degree turn down the wrong way on a one way road in the woods and his class C motorhome is not a jeep. He went from Baja to boo- hoo in one short wrong turn, bent tie rod and all. There was no way I was going to tell him to try and move his rig. Tow truck on the way. Can this evening get any worse? Don’t ever ask yourself that question.
After crawling around in the woods, looking at a rock pushing on things it should not be pushing on under a motorhome and trying to subtly convince this moron he was indeed turning right at a place where the signs, the map, and our directions had told him to go straight, I returned to the office with a desire to attempt to catch up with my normal work. It was nearly closing time and I was way behind in my paper work. As I entered my office, I noticed 3 or 4 leaves on the floor. They had obviously been tracked in during our latest and greatest emergency. Rather than leave them there for the morning crew to clean I decided to be the good camper and pick them up. It was now that the pinnacle of discordant winds began to blow. Have you ever heard the sound of weak material as it gives its last scream of life? I bent over to scoop up a few wet leaves and autumn breezes began to blow up my now breezy slacks. Yes, I ripped a large hole in the seat of my britches. The ripping sound was nearly loud enough to register on the Richter scale and every time I moved even the slightest a louder and bigger rip developed. My seat was getting very cool with the entire breeze that was entering my previously intact slacks. It is a good thing I wear briefs or it might have been a break through I would not have been fully proud of showing. Welcome to my Twilight Zone.
Certain members of my family found this new open air fashion statement I was exemplifying quite humorous. My wife, actually, found it down right funny. I had a slightly different perspective. It was a good thing I took my jacket to work because I needed it to wear home. I did not wear it on my shoulders. I wore it a bit lower on the torso as I quickly proceeded to leave the office and hastily walk home. It was not just the open air design of my now soon to be discarded trousers that hastened my retreat. I wanted to get the hell out of the Twilight Zone that had been this day. On some days the winds of fate have a ripple of discordance in them. On this day it had been more like a tornado.
The good news is that I now have 3 new pairs of slacks and I am hopefully entering a time of calmer breezes and much less turbulence with all of my body parts protected.
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