Lessons Learned

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I spent the morning planting wisteria vines that had been gifted to me from a friend. The big skies were blue and a gentle breeze blew. A hint of fall in the air. I gathered some flower seed and pulled some weeds.

I was procrastinating. Peaches needed attention. I have forced peaches on every camper passing through and they seem to be growing in number. I could not fit them in the refrigerator and they won't last at room temperature, so I had no choice but to tackle the chore and peel them and prepare them for the freezer. I have plenty of peaches in the freezer. This winter will include peaches with every meal.

As the sun warmed things up, I went inside to deal with the peaches. He who rescues stranded travelers was sitting in his favorite chair, laptop open and eyes closed. I set up my bowls on the table where I can see the door to the store and easily handle customers. I was sitting there, up to my elbows in peach juice when I saw the door to the store open. I asked he who was no longer napping to handle the customer as I continued to peel and slice. He stood at the half door and said that he saw no one. I told him that I saw the door open and the top of someone's head come in. I assumed it was a child. It was not. It was an adult. They were asking about tent sites. They wanted to go look first, then come back to the office. Not an unusual request, and off they went. I was still peeling away, determined to fill the container I was working on, despite the fact that my fingertips were pruning up and my arthritic thumb was aching. Fruit flies were swarming my bowl of pits and peels.

He who is wont to troll the kampground roads went out to do just that and noticed the couple looking at tent sites had pulled over at the bath house. He witnessed the female exiting the ladies room and upon driving off, they tossed a bag of trash onto the ground. Unhappy, he stopped and gathered it up to dispose of before going on in the direction they were headed.

He saw them coming out of a site occupied by seasonal campers and stopped them to ask what they were doing. "Oh, we thought this was one of the tent sites." He told them to be on their way, since they would not be staying in any event, due to the trash incident. "Oh, sorry about that."

All this was related to me as I was cleaning up my peach mess. He who delivers fuel to those who have none went on just such a call and I promptly forgot about the would-be tenters as I set about washing up my peachy mess.

We were looking forward to eating with our besties, Patrick and Julie. Never matters what we eat, it always includes lots of laughter. Julie was making a big pot of ham hocks and beans. I was in charge of the cornbread and was supposed to make rice. I had everything organized and ready to meet the timeline .......... then customers and the phone jumped in to ruin my plans. I forgot the rice entirely, which is just as well. I would probably have burned it. I did manage the cornbread. Also a nice little salad of cucumbers and tomatoes fresh from the garden. I used a dressing similar to the dressing used in three bean salad. Turned out to be quite tasty.

I mention the dressing to my salad for a specific reason. Julie is a character. When asked what she wanted to drink with our meal, she responded that she would just drink some of Patrick's ........ Like me, Julie considers the food on her husband's plate as theirs. We share. Julie really liked my salad and decided to put the dressing left into her bowl of beans with broken up cornbread. She liked it, but as she got full, she instructed Patrick to finish hers ......

He made a face and asked her what she had put in her bowl. All innocence, she says "cornbread", then half a beat later she remembers the "juice from the cucumbers". She informs Patrick that it is good and to just eat it. He did as instructed, then wondered how to remove the "sinkerator" tattoo that must be on his forehead.

See what I mean? Fun. After we ate, Julie and I took a ride around the park on her golf cart. While riding along we make an interesting discovery. In the road, on a back road, we see something. It is a pair of jeans and a car mat. We find it strange and I pick the items up and take them to he who is in charge of all things out of the ordinary. He looks puzzled and then asks if I used all the gas in the can he provided me with that morning. I was going to mow, but never got to it, so I had used none.

He then asked if I had moved the gas can. He had set it in the front porch, but found it at the bath house ........... empty. $12 worth of gas. Gone. At the bath house where the female partner in crime was seen exiting the ladies room where the bag of trash had been unceremoniously tossed to the ground ..... perhaps to slow down the man in the truck while they pulled off on a side road to take off the jeans that had been sloshed with gas from the full can stolen from my front porch. Setting said can on the floor mat, it sloshed again as they rode looking for a place to stop and pour it in their tank. They tossed the Tinker Bell floor mat, preferring not to smell gas as they made their escape.

Had they asked for help, we would have helped them and they could be eating some fine peaches. Now they have to wait for the payback they will get from this. Could be years from now, but they will get caught up with. And, I have learned a valuable lesson. I should always put the gas can away while peeling peaches.