Be Prepared

Something about learning that a large group of young boys would be camping in the park on a weekend that we were to work sends chills down my spine.  Normally, each of the available campsites hold only 2 adults, and maybe 1 or 2 children.  Cleaning the park and bathrooms after a busy weekend when the park is full takes some time.  Now imagine that 8 of those campsites average 8 boys each for a weekend.  Imagine cleaning those 8 sites and the bathrooms if those 64 boys were unsupervised most of the time.

You and I would drive into this RV park and see an attractive, elevated building with a combination of steps and ramps leading up to the office.  We’d also see a large observation deck upstairs that overlooks the river, a deck where we could look out and see dolphins playing, boats of all kinds passing by, and pelicans dive-bombing into the water in search of food.  We’d see and be thankful for the sparkling clean bathrooms and shower areas.

What does a group of 64 unsupervised boys see as they look at that same building?  Two-story high ramps for footraces.  A deck to hang from before dropping to the ground 15 feet below.  A deck that also serves as a launching pad for rocks, wet and wadded-up balls of toilet paper, and gobs of spit that rain down onto the heads of unsuspecting passers-by.

Imagine 64 unsupervised boys in the bathrooms and shower area.  Water to squirt all over the mirrors, walls, and sinks.  Toilet paper to turn into wet globs and hurl up to the high cathedral ceiling, where they stick.  Paper towels to stuff into the toilets so that they overflow with the first flush.  Shower curtains to rip down.  Corners!  (Why use the urinals and toilets?)

What adults in their right minds would bring a group of 64 boys to an RV park for a weekend and not have any activities planned for them?  Who, in good conscience, could let 64 boys play unsupvised and out of sight along a deep river right at the dangerous mouth of the Gulf of Mexico and on the beach where riptides and pounding surf can claim a wader or swimmer in seconds?  I can answer that:  It’s the 3 adults sitting under a canopy, visiting with one another and turning a blind eye to what the boys are doing.  Who's counting heads?  No one.

Be prepared?  That’s an impossible task because there is no way we can prepare for 64 unsupervised boys who are turned loose for 48 hours in the RV park.

 

Be prepared?  Yeah, I'd like to be prepared . . . by hanging out a CLOSED sign at the entrance to the park.

 

 

What the Rules Don't Say

You can't make this stuff up! Park rules state "Pets are not allowed in the offices, laundry room, or showers." What the rules should also say is that pets can't be shampooed on the picnic tables in the park. Duh, common sense, right? Today we saw--and stopped--the shampooing of two large dogs on a picnic table. Don't worry, future campers. Wayne and I scrub and disinfect every table and bench in each site when it's vacated. But YUK! And then this: "Pets must be on leashes while in the park." What else do we have to deal with today? Two large dogs running loose, dragging their leashes. (Do you see where this is going?) When we returned the dogs to their owner, he pointed out that the rule does NOT say someone has to be holding the free end of the leash. He was serious, and he was not happy when we told him one end of the leash goes on the dog and the other end goes in the owner's hand. Who was the owner? The guy who had tried to shampoo his dogs on the picnic table. I swear, I am going to write a book about our experiences as park hosts.

Friday Night Park Host Duties . . . Redux

10:25 PM Friday night.  The book I'm working on is writing itself for me.  Where have I been on this windy night?  I've had to go tell a group of campers that open fires are not allowed in the park.  What?  Where does it say that?  Well, Rule #11 is where it says that, in bold print.  We have winds blowing at 10 - 15 MPH, with occasional gusts of 21 MPH.  And you thought an open fire was a good idea?  Really?

American Idol and the Entitled Generation

American Idol, a chance to earn fame and fortune!  The key words in that sentence, if you didn't get them, are CHANCE and EARN.  No guarantees come with the auditions, just a chance to stand out in the crowd and earn a trip to the big time.  You have to have talent and earn your way through the rounds of judging; without talent, you won't get beyond the first round of judging.  (Frequently the judges have to remind contestants that American Idol is a singing competition.).   Somewhere along the line, we have created a generation of young adults who didn't read the fine print in the American Idol information packets.  Chance?  Earn?  Foreign terms to far too many of the contestants.  

When some contestants fail to make the cut and are sent home, they pay attention to the criticism from the judges, all of whom are experts in the field of vocal music, and then leave graciously.  But far too many contestants react to being cut by flipping off everyone in sight, letting a string of expletives fly, announcing to everyone waiting to audition that the judges "don't know nothing," and then storming from the audition facility, still letting the bird and curse words fly.  Some stop outside and let themselves be filmed while they criticize everything from the judges to the quality of contestants who were chosen to go on in the competition, all the time screaming that the audience will see them again, as big stars, because they are absolutely the best singers on the planet.  

The most alarming thing to me when witnessing the drama from a contestant after he or she has been eliminated is hearing, "They're making a mistake.  They call themselves experts?  I am the best singer this competition has ever seen."  (Be sure to add plenty of expletives and waving of the middle finger throughout those sentences.)  Hey, kids, I watched your auditions and the singing was off-the-charts awful.  I'm not a music expert, but I'm pretty sure that when you are off key, sing through your nose, forget the words, have no rhythm, wail and warble at the top of your lungs, and add screeching runs to the end of every phrase, you are NOT a singer, much less the next American Idol.  And some of you didn't get the memo about wearing appropriate attire to the auditions, right?  What else could explain your decision to cross-dress, wear a clown costume, display inappropriate amounts of body flesh, don a lime green wig, or appear in a bikini?

I think I know how we've reached the point where a young adult decides he or she wants to be the next American Idol and immediately transfers that thought into the "I deserve to be the next American Idol just because that's what I want" belief.  Remember when schools started putting happy face stickers on every paper a student did, no matter how awful the work actually was?  Remember the "no one loses, everyone wins" movement that's ruined all kinds of competitions for kids?  Remember the lowering of standards in education so that no one fails and everyone could be the best and pass every class?  Remember how we were told that the most important thing anyone could give a child was a healthy, never-questioned dose of unearned self-esteem?  Now we have a whole generation of young adults who believe they're entitled to anything and everything they want, unearned, even when they're unqualified for whatever it is they desire.

When kids grow up being told that everything they say and do is wonderful, they are pretty quick to believe what they're told (because that's easier than having to actually work to be wonderful or successful).  One day one of those wonderful kids wakes up, decides he or she is the next American Idol, hotfoots it to a nearby audition, and then has a meltdown when confronted with a reality check from the judges.

The "don't give up your day job" admonishment from the judges to many contestants no longer applies.  If you watch the info blurbs (name, age, occupation) that appear when a contestant steps up to audition, you'll notice that the last piece of information this year frequently reads "unemployed."  Not student, not waiter, not receptionist, etc.  Just unemployed.  How can you be 19 or 22 or 27 and be unemployed?  Maybe you wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief, and that didn't work out for you?  And other jobs are too menial, even though you have no education?  So now you'll just be a recording artist like Carrie Underwood or Keith Urban and make millions, never mind that you have no talent?  Well, hey, if that's what you want, then you certainly are entitled to be just that. 

If it just weren't for that pesky reality check offered at the auditions . . .  

   

Hospital Waiting Room Nightmare

I'm in a nightmare. Truly. I'm sitting in the only surgical waiting room at the Matagorda Regional Medical Center, waiting to be called for some pre-op work, and a group of 13 people, including 2 screaming infants, has taken over all but 3 of the chairs in here, spread food and drinks over the magazine tables and floor, and are whooping it up loudly. You can hear them from one end of the hall to the other. How rude! They have a relative in surgery, but apparently their waiting room party is their concern, not their patient or the other people on the waiting room (2 of whom are awaiting post-surgery reports on their loved ones) are having to stand because there are no chairs available for them). RUDE!!!!!! 

I reported the group party when I was called for my tests.  When I returned, the party was over and the party-goers were gone.  Coincidence?  Asked to leave?  Whatever happened, it was a good thing. 

Tent City and the Hot Checks (No, not the name of a band!)

In the RV park where we are volunteer park hosts, campsite occupancy is limited to 8 campers, including children. If a group has nine or more campers in it, an additional site must be rented to accommodate the overflow. Eighteen campers in a group? Three campsites must be rented. Twenty-four campers in a group? Again, three campsites must be rented. Unfortunately, and more often than not, people aren't truthful when they are checking in and telling us how many people are in their group.

Late one Friday night, I stopped a car that was creeping around the campground, obviously looking for a place to camp. I asked the driver if she had reservations, and no, she didn't. Not a problem--we had many open sites that evening. She said she would be tent camping, just her and her mother, who was in the passenger seat of the car. I led her to an available site and wished her a pleasant evening and a good camping trip.

The next morning I was startled to see tents spread all over that woman's campsite as well as throughout the adjacent site. When I went to see why so many tents were there, the woman (party of 2, who rented one site from us) said, "Oh, well, my family is here, too." They had come in and set up between midnight and when I looked out at 6:45 AM. At that point, I counted sixteen people and 5 tents in the sites. I told the woman she needed to pay for an additional site, because only 8 campers per site were allowed, and also because her group had already spread out into the adjacent site, meaning it was not available to other campers. She said she'd come settle up with a check "in a bit . . . if she HAD to . . ."

As soon as I left, several people in her group headed across the parking lot and up into the laundry room, where we have 3 very nice commercial high-efficiency washers and 3 commercial dryers for campers to use. Each person was carrying two large black garbage bags, apparently full of dirty clothes. Several signs in the laundry room instruct campers to pay for laundry, $4.00 per wash/dry load, at the office or at the park hosts' RV. (The laundry fee is a bit high, but we provide users with a name-brand high-efficiency detergent at no charge in an attempt to protect the washers from being subjected to damage from an over-abundance of soap and soapsuds.) Throughout the day, I watched a steady stream of people from the "tent city" go back and forth, hauling one load of laundry after another in and out of the laundry room. When I made my late-night inspection of the laundry and shower areas, all six machines were still hard at work, and the laundry room floor was covered with feathers. Feathers! I asked the man sitting by the door where the feathers had come from; he said he had no idea: "I'm just here waiting for our clothes to finish." I told him I needed to check the dryers because they seemed to be extremely hot to the touch (of course they were--they'd been hard at work for over 10 hours by that time). When I opened the 3 dryer doors, a storm of feathers swirled out and onto me, the floor, and the folding counter. In each dryer were what appeared to be pillows and comforters. The lint filters were so filled with feathers that it's a miracle a fire hadn't occurred by the time I checked them. I looked at the guy who "had no idea" about the origin of the feathers, and he admitted he was washing feather bedding.

In the office I asked the cashier if the group doing the marathon laundry had paid for all the loads they'd done and were still doing. No, they hadn't. I went back to the laundry room and told the man that the group owed the park approximately $120 (3 loads per hour for what had been at the LEAST 10+ straight hours of washing and drying). That figure was just a guess--the machines have 58 minute wash cycles, and the laundry march had begun a little over 10 hours earlier. The man said he knew the group owed a lot for the laundry and that he'd pay by check when all the laundry was finished.

The woman who rented the site did pay the extra fees, by check. It bounced.

The man did pay the laundry fees, by check. It bounced.

The laundry room and both campsites were left trashed.

That's a Stupid Rule

Not long ago, a camper parked—and left— a van in the middle of the single-lane one-way drive that runs through the park. (Rule #2, No parking in the roadway, on the grass, on the concrete patio site, or in an adjacent site.) After getting no answer when I knocked on the camper door nearest to where the vehicle was, I headed out to the pier to see if the owner might be out there. Sure enough, she was sitting on a bench there, enjoying a beer and visiting with friends. I asked her to move her van, which by that time had blocked two large motor homes that were trying to get to their sites. She wasn’t happy with my request and replied,“Well, I have a load of I need to move into the camper. I can’t park in my site because our truck is there.” However, she did leave the pier and head for her vehicle, so I assumed (my mistake) that she was complying with my request. After I returned to my RV, I looked back to check that the van had been moved to the “extra vehicle” parking not far from her site. Well, she’d moved it all right, moved it onto the grass between the park drive and her site’s concrete patio area. I went back to the woman and asked her to please move the vehicle and reminded her that parking on the grass, like parking on the park drive, was not allowed. She said, “Where does it say that?” I pointed it out on the rule card, again, Rule #2. I also told her there was a sign posted in the grass, along the drive by her site, asking campers not to park on the grass. She said, “Where? I don’t see any sign around here.” I told her she didn’t see it because her van was now straddling that red and white No Parking on the Grass sign, which she’d knocked down and bent to the ground as she drove over it. The story should end with her apologizing and quickly moving her car, but no, that wasn’t the end of it. She walked off from me, opened the tailgate of the van, and started unloading things. Before she turned her back to walk away from me, she announced, “That’s a stupid rule and I have no intention of following it. I have things to unload and I’m not going to carry them from the parking area to my RV (a distance of about 30 steps).” Ahhhhh . . . the rewards of being a volunteer park host.