Toddler Behavior

It has been a little slow today. Slow enough for me to weed the front gardens, do two loads of laundry, pick and shell a basket of peas and poach some fresh peaches. A pleasant day.

After all my activity I was content to sit down after eating my dinner. I was listening to an audio book and playing with a puzzle on Jigidi. You know, just winding down. A camper pulled in and I was getting him taken care of and another camper came in right behind him. I was busy, but I never want to overlook someone waiting. I asked the lady who came in if she was with the man I was helping, then told her I would be right with her. A young man and a girl of maybe 10 came in and I looked up at them while the credit card machine was chatting with the bank and asked if I could help them.

"We just want to swim." says the young man who could not have been older than 25. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was 5:30 and said that I was sorry, the pool closes at 5 on the weekends. He sneered at me and said "Do what?" I repeated myself and he told me that was pretty stupid to close the pool early on the weekends. I shouldn't have even tried, but I explained to him that the weekend people camping here liked to use the pool and that I was pretty full.

He looked down at the girl and said, "Let's get out of here and go somewhere else ......" He was muttering and my bank transaction was over, I went back to my original customer to show him how to get to his site. Both campers commented on the rudeness of the young man.

Before I could finish hi-lighting the map, the man was back to tell me there was no one in my pool. I have been known to break my rules and let people swim a little longer or even give them a reduced rate if they have arrived right before the pool closes. My prerogative to do so, after all I own the place. On a hot summer day I just can't turn a child away with their disappointed eyes. But this guy was rude.

"So, you think I should break the rules just for you?" I asked. He told me I was stupid, that he swims here all the time and had been coming here all his life. "Then you should know the hours the pool is open." He then repeated that he had been coming here all his life and had never had a problem until NOW "with YOU". I have never seen this man before. I told him I have been here for 13 years and this is the first time I have ever seen him.

I did not break the rules for the rude young man and my campers applauded me. Seems like nowadays people want to be rewarded for their bad behavior. They seem to think that creating a scene will get them what they want.

And here's the deal. The pool hours have been in place all season. Before we bought the park, the pool hours were 1pm-5pm weekdays only. My weekday hours are 11am-7pm and weekends are Noon-5pm. So if his swimming experience happened before my time, he would not have been swimming on a Saturday. The woman before me was a stickler for rules. If you arrived 20 minutes early, you sat in your car and waited. I will remind the early arrivals of the pool hours, but I will let them get in the pool early.

And I was having such a pleasant day. Such is life.