Worst. Weekend. Ever.

 I wake every Friday with an overwhelming sense of dread. I already have trouble sleeping and last night was no exception. My faithful companion, Cujo always follows me to sit on the sofa and try to find an activity that will induce sleep. The others sleep on blissfully unaware of my dilemma, along with HeWho can sleep under any circumstance. Or, maybe they just don't care. Cujo does and somehow that is enough.

I am booked solid every weekend this month and while that should make me happy and grateful for the business, it doesn't. More people translates to more problems, it would seem and this past weekend was, hands down, the worst one I have had in 17 years.

I was tired when I dragged myself out of the bed that I only spent 4 hours in. But, I had things to accomplish. I gulped coffee until I felt my heart arrhythmia kick in. I took advantage of that nervous energy and headed out to water my vegetable and flower gardens after cleaning my kitchen and tossing the ingredients for supper in the crockpot. With a book speaking to me with my earbuds, I went out to indulge myself in my happy place. I love nothing more than watering plants and communing with nature.

But, no, it was not to be. They find me, these campers of early arrival yesterday and begin a litany of complaints about the WiFi. One complains that her phone will not even work here. She is not getting calls and is unable to call anyone and she is sure it is my WiFi. I suggest that perhaps it could be her phone carrier, or maybe even her phone. I bit my tongue and did not suggest user error. Lo and behold when I suggested she go to settings and check them her phone came back to life! I thought perhaps she would move on and leave me be after that, but the three women seemed to want to follow me and give out unsolicited gardening advice. They managed to suck the pleasure out of my morning and suddenly it was time to open for the day and my moment of peace was not to be.

These were the campers who admitted that they brought firewood into my park despite the signage disallowing this. A mandate from the Dept. of Natural Resources in an effort to keep the Ash Bore Beetle from spreading disease in the trees. Then they parked their extra vehicles on someone else's site! They parked between the two campers next to them! They seem to have an overrated sense of entitlement. How very rude to take someone else's parking space. 

And that was just the beginning of the weekend from hell. I am resigned to the fact that there will be at least one group bringing me angst every weekend, maybe more on a holiday. But this past weekend brought with it four. The group that came in on Thursday is running a tie with the woman I literally screamed at. I have NEVER lost it like I did with that woman and the way she acted, I have a feeling that she provokes this from a lot of people.

I have recently lowered the speed limit to 5, but the group of early arrivers seemed to think they were exempt from any and all rules. They brought along a UTV that sped through my park with great regularity. I was in the office, unable to even yell at them until I closed on Friday after my poor behavior with the woman I had screamed at and dealt with a pool accident involving an unsupervised child of 10 who decided to disregard my "NO DIVING" signs.

The UTV was being piloted by a child and going much too fast. I yelled at her to stop and the adult with her seemed to think it was all very amusing and sarcastically thanked me for telling her to slow down. I was thinking of watering my tomatoes, but quickly abandoned that thought and took myself inside, took a cool shower and crawled into bed. I was hungry, but unable to swallow.

My camp worker and his wife were pretty much in the same state I was in, along with HeWho normally takes life in stride. I pondered about the the moon, wondering if it was full and somebody told me it was a devil's moon. Never knew of such, but found it very believable. 

The father of the child whose friend decided to dive and ended up meeting the bottom of the pool with his face came in to purchase something and I asked if the injured child belonged to him. "He's my son's friend, if you can believe it." Why would I not believe it? Is he a pathological liar? Why would he say that? I managed to keep those thoughts in my head and not let them fly out of my mouth and just looked at this person that some unknown parent had entrusted their child to for the weekend. "I told him not to dive and he said he was going to anyway, so he got what he deserved." He was grinning as if he had imparted some kind of special wisdom to me.

I was dumbfounded for a few seconds before I took a deep breath and said, "As amusing as you may find this, I don't think it is at all funny. First of all, their is signage in big bold letters everywhere around the pool informing you that children are not allowed in the pool area without adult supervision. Beyond that you are compromising my liability insurance and I don't appreciate it." What if the child had hit the bottom at a different angle and broken his neck? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

My mask sign is still up and I expect people to respect my wishes on my property whether they agree with me or not. I will ask if you are vaccinated and if you are, you can remove your mask inside. No restrictions outside. Most people come in with a mask on and have nothing to say about my sign. If they happen to come in with a naked face and I ask if they are vaccinated and they are not, they will put the mask on without comment or rolling eyes. I do not care to hear what you believe. You may want to challenge me, but you will not win. If you do not agree and do not want to comply, you are free to leave. I will not wrestle you to the floor and tape a mask over your mouth and nose. Just my way or the highway.

The woman I screamed at entered and when I asked if she was vaccinated she challenged me with "What does it matter to you?" I told her she could not come in without a mask, that there was a sign indicating that. Instead of leaving to either send someone else in to register or go get a mask she began firing questions at me. "Why should I wear a mask here, I don't wear one when I go to the grocery store? My children don't wear masks either, why should they? Do you have a mask? If you have a mask I will wear a mask. Do you have a mask? Do you want me to buy a mask from you? I will buy a mask from you if I have to. I don't have a mask, we don't have to wear them anymore. Do you have a mask? I don't see why I have to wear a mask.

She said more, but I stopped listening as her husband and children backed out the door and left it to her. I told her that I did not have a mask thinking to myself that I was not her mother and should not have to provide her with one and because she was still shooting her questions at me over and over, I pointed to the door and spoke over her saying "MASK" over and over again until she finally exited. Wonder of wonders, she returned with a mask in place and started in again about how she could go grocery shopping and then started to badger me some more.  I instructed her on filling out her part of the registration. Instructions she failed to follow, as she was intent on telling me how wrong I was. I simply ignored her and her tone until she finally tripped my switch as I was finishing the process of checking her in. I started at her until she shut her mouth and told her that she was standing on private property, in fact MY private property and that she did not have to stay here, but if she did she was subject to all of my rules. I then went on to say that I knew she knew she was standing on my last nerve and that she should simply stop.

Unfazed she picked right up where she left off and continued her questions that she didn't seem to want answers to. So I shouted at her to SHUT UP. She didn't and kept right on. I then screamed at her to SHUT UP!  

I can't do this anymore. I just can't. I am making myself sick. We spend all week repairing what is damaged over the weekend just to repeat the next week. People seem to have no respect for the property of others and the revenue I collect is not nearly enough for what I have to put up with. 

It wasn't always this way. Makes me wonder what happened to make people so self important. Some say it is all because of COVID and the quarantine. I don't think that has anything to do with the attitude of people. Some say it is because these people don't visit church regularly. I would venture to say that some of them will tell you that they are pillars of their church community, but when they are here you would not know it.

My mind hurts and I want to escape. I long to go outside and piddle around my flowers. People will see me, though. I have no desire to talk to anyone. My throat is sore from talking all day long on the phone. Today was a marathon of one call coming in on the call before and in the middle of a call making me have to return calls and then have another call endlessly beeping while I take a reservation or try to solve an issue someone is having. One caller called FOUR times in a row while I was tied up with another caller. You may wonder what the urgency may have been .... she just wanted to know if the pool was open. She then proceeded to tell me that her niece was visiting from out of state and she wanted to bring her and her daughter swimming because my pool was so nice and they loved swimming here. Two other calls beeped in while I was trying to be polite and I had to return those calls. All. Day. Long.