The Holiday Begins .....

I sit here sipping coffee and await the beginning of a holiday weekend. I run through a checklist in my mind. Everything is done. Bathrooms cleaned and stocked, dumpster empty, fireworks purchased, coffee to brew, food ready to be cooked. Now all I need is campers.

The weather is predicted to be just right for a great day tomorrow. Not too hot and no rain in the forecast. Now, if the shop will just get my golf cart ready ......

Put this down to answer the phone and after a zillion snocones and more calls, I am back. It was going to be pretty boring without some really good phone calls anyway.

The phone did not disappoint me! In the midst of a marathon sno.cone event ...... involving mixing unlikely flavors together and lots of them, the phone did ring. "Ya'll got any sites tonight?" I answer in the affirmative and before he could start to ramble on, I asked if I could give him a call back after I made 4 more snocones. "Well, no, you can't call me at this number, I ain't supposed to be using my work phone....." I cut him off and told him to call back in 5 minutes. I am a fast builder of snocones.

He called back. "Now, if we stay all day tomorrow, do we have to pay?" I am confused by this question. Is he asking if he should expect to pay for the night he camps, or is he asking if I expect to be paid for a late stay. Well, here's the deal. He is local and he knows about the fireworks display, so he wants to come out today and pay for tonight, then leave after he partakes of the free meal and fireworks display. I ask him if he would expect to pay for another day if he stayed late in a hotel. This was stupid of me, since now having met the man, I am sure he has never stayed in a hotel, maybe a motel ....

I assured him that he would indeed have to pay for both nights. He showed up about 20 minutes later. Oh boy, let the fun begin. He struggled to fill out the registration and when he got to the portion that asks for the number of people he had to free his hands to count. Oddly enough, though, when I took over and asked him to give me the number of adults and the number of children under the age of 14, he only came up with a total of 5.

I could swear I saw all his fingers and thumbs at work naming people that were to join him and his "old lady". This is setting my mood for this weekend .... and not in a good way.

I have some good spies in my park and he might be leaving sooner than he thinks.