Weekends Are Made For Insanity!!

The weekend starts out innocently enough with only a few reservations......... The ever ringing phone soon takes care of that and folks start to arrive in the early afternoon.In my world there are two kinds of campers. Those that are here for the weekend and most likely live nearby, and those that are traveling and just want a place to stay overnight. The weekenders will usually make the reservations far in advance, unless it is a last minute idea. The travelers will either call before they even begin the trip, or call early on the day they need to stay, or simply show up and either hope for the best or expect the RV park to have somehow anticipated their arrival.



They all seem to arrive at the same time, then have to wait their turn to check in. I am either very busy or very unbusy at any given time. The best way I know to attract business is to leave the office. For any reason. Go to the bathroom, go to clean up a bathroom, try to eat a meal, let the dogs out .................... any thing that takes you away from the check-in desk will yield a customer.



I checked in a nice gentleman who asked for two sites as close together as I could get them. His son was caught in traffic some where behind him. I inquired about the electrical needs and he called his son to ask. I had told the man that I could accommodate them either way, but he called anyway. The man was nice, if a little frazzled. I just attributed it to being tired from driving. I assigned the sites and he went on and parked. Two more customers show up to check in and a woman comes in with them carrying a yellow plastic bag and pushes her way to the counter and announces that she has finally cleaned up all the garbage on the site I put her on and presents the bag to me saying, "This is for you!". I try to put the bag of trash outside, but she insists that I take it behind the counter. I do and she leaves. I am baffled and don't know which site she is on and wonder where she found trash, since we had just mowed and picked up the entire park. I check in my other guests and make a mental note to send he who needs to check this out around to look.



Another RV pulls in before I can call him and a woman and two men come in. She asks for a 50 amp site and I instinctively know that she must be the daughter-in-law of the frazzled gentleman I checked in earlier. I ask and am right. She tells me in a low tone that she really doesn't have to be right next to her in-laws. It was her mother-in-law who brought me the trash. She has dementia it seems and they have been on an extended trip together. I try to put a site between them, but the mother-in-law makes her husband move their camper next to them. She brings me more trash when she informs me of the move. I just graciously accept it at this point, although I am still wondering where she is getting it from. I should have inspected the bag and I would have known. She made a third trip with some trash and simply held it in her hand (I suppose they took her bags away). She told me that I had a lovely park, but that if she were in my position, she would be outside cleaning up. I smiled and told her that I would be out as soon as I closed the store. Bless her heart, she was apparently digging in the fire pits and finding half-burned trash.




That is how the weekend started. It was insanely hot and humid and tempers were short. I refunded a wildly jumping man who screamed that none of my sites were suitable for his travel trailer. He was hot and angry. I am not sure if he was angry before he came in or not, his wife checked in. I just knew that I didn't want to deal with him and that I would not be able to make him happy, no matter what I did. That didn't even make him happy. Maybe he thought I would let him stay for free if he had a small fit. Didn't work out, if that is what he was thinking.




The additional signs are up and the speed bump in place. They are still not stopping. They won't let me have a gun. I would only shoot out the tires, I wouldn't shoot a person, geez, I'm not crazy ............. At least the speed bump is getting their attention and making them slow down. Anyway, that is not the only traffic violation that can occur. I am not good with makes and models of cars, etc. I can tell you what color they are and if they are gas or diesel if I hear the motor. Beyond that I am pretty useless. I can't tell a Ford from a Dodge ....... and really don't care so much. There was a family here this weekend with a car that has the spare tire attached to the back of the car ....... it was a white car, by the way. The father came into the store with his kids and bought some ice and candy and I happened to be looking out the window when they left. He drove all the way around the park with his daughter riding atop the spare!!!!!!! I am not kidding. He wasn't going slow, either. She was probably about 10 and a smart mouthed little thing, but, I was so afraid he was going to bounce into one of the speed bumps, making her fall and injure herself. I was frozen in disbelief for a moment before I made he who should enforce the rules get up and look. He who promised he would go talk to the man, but I doubt he did. He doesn't enjoy a good confrontation as much as I do.