Sunday, November 4, 2012

Another One of THOSE Weekends at the RV Park

This weekend at the RV park has been another of the "Why am I doing this?" weekends.  The common denominator for everything bad that's happened is kids--unsupervised kids.  Why do parents let kids play in the public bathrooms?  Oh, wait, I know--those kids are supposed to be using the facilities as they were intended to be used.  But what happens is that those very kids, the ones who hop from one foot to another and proclaim to their parents that they have to go RIGHT NOW, run to the bathrooms and then proceed to have water fights, throw wads of wet toilet tissue up to the ceiling (where it sticks like glue), stop up the toilets with anything they can find at hand to cram into them, squirt the liquid hand soap all over the counters and floor, pull down the shower curtains and rods, spit sunflower seeds everywhere (including the shower drains), squirt shampoo and conditioner at each other and all over the floors and walls . . . jeez, just thinking about the clean-up ahead of us makes me seriously consider hitching up our RV and hitting the road rather than cleaning the bathrooms (a required part of our jobs).  We're volunteers, for heaven's sake!  We're used to performing regular maintenance and cleaning in the RV park bathrooms.  But this--what unsupervised kids have left for us to do--is far beyond what anyone should have to do for someone else.  Maybe I should go grab the parents by their ears and drag them into the bathrooms, hand them the cleaning supplies, and then tell them I'll be back later to see that the job was done and done right.  But no, the customer is ALWAYS right. I'll tell you one thing:  We have seriously considered our plan to continue to be volunteer park hosts at various state and national parks.  When people follow the rules, and when children don't act like heathens, the job is fine--even fun.  But on days like today, when we have 10 times the work to do because ill-behaved children have created a mess for us, forget it.  I am about a minute away from hitching up our rig, as I said, and heading out, leaving those bathrooms for someone else to clean.  NOT in a good mood today. (I have heard from many friends that our situation here is far different than it would normally be as a RV park host.  Guess we just got lucky.)