Admittedly, I thought most of the campground stories were over with. Seeing as I’m working in the office now, and not at the campground itself.

As I mentioned before, there is a phone here in which all campground calls are forwarded to. And every now and then I do get the odd call (usually, it’s just a telemarketer). I also keep up with the campground e-mails, just in case anything important arises.

Well, today I got an e-mail from a gentleman who was convinced that we over charged him. In May. 

My first response was, why the hell did you wait six months to contact us about it? I mean really now.

So I pulled up his account to check it out, and no. We did not overcharge him. He bought tour passes, which he charged to the same credit card. So I wrote him back, kindly explaining how he was in no shape, way or form, over charged.

People do this a lot. And this guy wasn’t rude at all, he was quite nice about it. But I would have to be very very very sure that I was actually overcharged before I said anything about it.

Today started off pretty great. I forgot to set my alarm, but I woke up just a few minutes before 8:00 (perfect timing) and was ready and out the door by 8:35, so I could stop by Timmies on my way to work. Picked up a tea and a breakfast sandwich, and headed to the office.

I was actually on time, and since I managed to get a lot done yesterday, my goal was to finish up as much as I could today.

So I got started on that. Timmies now has their winter cups out, which are really cute so that was an added bonus. Then I had a really good lunch (pita with spinach and artichoke dip), listened to some music and some Eddie Izzard.

Now, I feel like totally crashing. I think I might have fallen asleep on the desk but I don’t know if it was just for about 30 seconds, or like ten minutes. O_O I have no idea why I’m suddenly so exhausted… but it’s really hard to concentrate on doing actual work.

Only an hour and forty-five minutes left…

Okay.

This is getting really irritating.

But I’ve had Jingle Bells and the Happy Days song stuck in my head all night long.

For no reason whatsoever.

Well, Jingle Bells because tomorrow (or today, in reality) marks the YAY WE’RE STARTING TO LEARN CHRISTMAS SONGS day in piano lessons. Although, I might hold out with Nicole and tell her we can’t do Christmas songs until she’s able to master the songs she’s supposed to know already.

Is that too mean?

It would only take her a good week or two of solid practice to actually catch up to where she should be with them, but it’s the ’solid practice’ part that isn’t really working out. I know she’s busy and I know that their family does a lot, but piano doesn’t magically get easier without practice. It only gets harder and harder and harder. Until you want to smash the keys to smithereens or break your fingers because they just won’t do what you want them to.

. . . this totally went in a different direction than I had originally planned.

Despite the fact that I’m not working in the office, if the campground line rings and I’m near the phone, I answer it.

I mean why not, right?

For some reason, a bunch of people decided to call the campground line today. One was a telemarketer who I was pretty rude to and thinking back on it I feel kind of bad, because she’s just doing her job. But this particular company calls at times, three times a week in the summer. They ask for my boss and when we say he’s not there, they try to sell whoever answered the phone their product (cell phone).

So she started her spiel, after I had told her he wasn’t there, and I cut her off and said, “Sorry but I’m not interested”. She asked why I wasn’t interested, did I have a cell phone already? And I said, “Honestly, you guys call us all the time in the summer. It’s really annoying and I’m just not interested”.

Then I hung up. It just gets so irritating.

Then I had another gem. Which made me go, Ahh, the good old campground days. It went a little something like this (doesn’t that make it seem like I’m going to break out into song?).

Me: Hello, [campground name]
Him: Hi… are you still open?
Me: No, unfortunately we’re not. We closed on October 15th.
Him: Oh I see.
Me: Yeah…
Him: Well, could I stay there for just one night?
Me: O_O We’re closed for the season.
Him: Yeah, but don’t really need anything. No water or sewer, just electric.
Me: … we’re closed for the season. The electric is shut off.
Him: I just need one night though.
Me: I’m sorry, but we’re all closed up.
Him: Well, do you know of anywhere else I could stay?
Me: *asks Nicole* You can try [campground name].
Him: Where are they?
Me: [Tells location]
Him: Do you have their number?
Me: … No I don’t. But their website is [address].
Him: Oh okay… thanks.

He wasn’t really rude to me or anything, but why would we open the campground for one night just because you want to come camping. Does that make sense? No, no it doesn’t. It doesn’t at all actually.

I had another lady call and ask when we closed. I told her October 15th, and she said Oh… Oh! That’s already passed! Haha. It was cute.

But seriously, people who a) keep asking if they can come when I’ve already told them we’re closed and b) ask me details about other campgrounds when I obviously do not work at those campgrounds annoy me.

In good news, I got my new DSL modem. It’s a newer model, smaller and really hot. I love it.

I am getting a cold.

I can feel it… my throat is getting all dry and sore and no amount of liquid has made it feel better.

I AM NOT IN THE MOOD TO CATCH A COLD.

Although I guess you never really are.

.
.
.

Admitedly, wearing flip flops to work when it was cold out (today) probably wasn’t my brightest idea.
But I don’t want to give innnn and I want to keep wearing them.

It’s like the other day. My boss was going, ‘IT’S COOOLLD. IT’S COOOLLLD’, yet he was wearing shorts.
So I said, ‘…. why are you wearing shorts if you’re cold!?’
And he replied, ‘BECAUSE I WON’T GIVE IN TO IT!’

Hahahaha.

Ahh, I’m thirsty, but too warm to actually get out of bed to get a drink.

A: DAVE! If you ever want to go camping in Poland, these people left their brochure!
D: Oooh!
A: They stayed here, and they own a campground there. So they gave this to us.
D: *takes brochure* Ooh. THEY EVEN HAVE FISH THERE! THEY HAVE FISHING.
A: Yeah! It looks nice. AND THEY LEFT US A KEYCHAIN.
D: It’s nice! Did you show my father?
A: No, not yet.

Okay, so this probably isn’t half as funny if you don’t know my boss, but for those that do I’m sure you can appreciate the conversation.

People never fail to amaze me — in both good and bad ways. Unfortunately, this particular blog post is about some idiot who was a total douchebag leaving me far less than impressed.

So yesterday I’m at the campground. I barely made it here on time (okay, so I was two minutes late) because I had overslept, I looked and felt like complete ass because I had hardly slept, and it just so happens that the one day in the off season when I’m late, some guy is standing at the front door. Whatever. He wasn’t mad or anything.

That’s how my day started. It wasn’t a particularly bad day, no one complained and most of the customers were really nice. My mum came at about 10:30 and brought me Starbucks and cereal which was a nice treat.

Shortly after this guy comes in and asks if he could have a late checkout. I asked him what time he was thinking of staying until, and he said around 3:00pm. I tod him that was a little too late for a late checkout (because checkout is normally at 11:00) and that we usually do 1:00 or maybe 2:00 at the very latest.

He said no problem, he could be out by 2:00. He was on site 158.

At about 2:30 two couples come to check in. These people are full of win and they’re super nice and really friendly. They had sites 509 and 158. The lady on 158 comes down to the office shortly after they checked in because someone was on her site. She said they just moved to 159 but I had to tell her we couldn’t do that beacuse someone had already rented that site, but had just pulled out for the day.

My boss went up there to check it out. Maybe the guy from 159 had accidentally gone on the wrong site. So he goes up there and the guy was the same one who came in earlier to ask for a late checkout. He said he had talked to me, and I said it was okay.

Ummmmmm.

I HAD SAID CHECKING OUT BY 2:00 AT THE LATEST WAS OKAY. By this time it was almost 3:00.

Anyways, he says he’s going to leave now. So he pulled off the site and the awesome lady got it.

At around 4:15 the two ladies came back to look around in the store. They tell me that that jackass pulled off of 158 and into 157 and only left about 10 minutes ago. AROUND 4:00.

Seriously, who does that? Why did he even bother coming to ask me in the first place if he was just going to do whatever the hell he wanted anyways?

They said that they sat at their picnic table and glared at him, hoping he would get the hint. Hahaha.

But really, what a stupid thing to do. If you wanted to have stayed, you could have paid for half a day. I think it’s almost worse that he came down here to talk to me about it and then deliberately stayed later regardless, especially after he was caught.

People have, in general, told me that they find Canadians friendly. That’s always nice to hear, because I know that even though I make lots of jokes about tourists, I normally don’t mind them and I don’t need to go out of my way to be rude to anyone. It’s not worth it.

But this guy who’s staying at the campground just. . . wow. I don’t know if he was kind of crazy or just overly friendly.

So, he comes into the store with his four kids in tow and they’re all pulling golf clubs out of the bucket. That’s fine. Then they wander around the store, with the golf clubs in tow, just looking around. Also, not a problem.

He picks up some items that he wants to buy; some swim goggles, marshmallows… his kids are all carrying around marshmallow sticks. He puts the goggles and bag of marshmallows on the counter, so I begin to ring them up.

Now my boss, when he’s here at night he likes to snack. So sitting on my side of the counter (we have a little wall thing, between us and the customer… like a tall ledge) are a bag of sunflower seeds. The guy reaches over and takes a handful, stuffing them into his mouth.

I was kind of unsure if that’s what I saw, well, it was more like disbelief. So I told myself he just had grabbed a pen or something he dropped.

He then goes over to the keychains, and picks up one that says “I [heart] NF”, and says out loud, “I LOVE NEWFOUNDLAND!”. I looked at him and corrected him, “It’s I love Niagara Falls“. But he insisted it was Newfoundland, and kept saying IT’S THE ROCK!

O_O Okay. I mean really, it could be Newfoundland. It doesn’t make any sense seeing as you’re in Niagara Falls, but hey, if you want it to be Newfoundland that’s fine by me.

He asks me where it was made. I told him I wasn’t sure and say it was probably made in China. Hhe wondered why I didn’t inspect the merchandise (jokingly). I told him that I just put it into the computer. So far, he’s paid for all his items except the keychain, I’m holiding his change. He goes over to the garbage can and starts scraping the price tag off the keychain — I haven’t rung it up yet.

He looks up at me and goes, “Doesn’t say where it was made” and then proceeds to ask me why so many things are made in China. I replied that one of the big reasons was that it was cheap labour. He seemed surprised.

He gets another one of the keychains (he bought two) and then comes to collect his change. He reaches over the counter again and grabs another fistful of sunflower seeds. I think my expression was honestly and completely, “WTF”. Then he says, “Oh I can’t get enough of these things! HAHA”.

O_O

I mean, who does that? Seriously, who does that? It’s not like they were open in front the counter for all the customers to take, they were obviously just sitting there, left over. He had no idea who they belonged to, although I’m sure he assumed they were mine. I was shocked, so I didn’t say anything about it.

They extended another night as well. He told me he was from BC, but his reservation said Alberta. That confused me, because I had no idea then why he was all NEWFOUNDLANDDDDD over the keychains.

He talked about a few other tihngs, but I don’t remember what they were. I had a hard tme understanding him too. He laughed a lot, at what I’m assuming were his own jokes.

He was a nice enough man, just totally random. I mean, to the point where I had no idea how to react.

I’m sorry, but I think it’s incredibly rude if you go somewhere, figure it’s not really the place for you and then ask the person working there for specifics and directions to their competition.

This is what just happened.

This lady came in and asked if we had a swimming pool. I said we did, but it’s closed for the season so she asked if we had an indoor pool or anything like that. We don’t, so I told her that.

Then she asks me if I know if any of the campgrounds around here have indoor pools.

What the hell, does it look like I work at all the other campgrounds? No. Because I’m quite obviously employed here. 

I told her there’s one that I think might, but I wasn’t sure because I had never been there. So she asks me where it is and I told her the street it’s on. Then she goes, “Well, how do I get there?” and sees the maps we have on the ledge of the counter. “Oh, here’s a map. Here, show me how to get there”. 

:/

I think that’s really rude.

. . .  I totally think this guy just asked me where the sex shops are in Niagara Falls.

He asked and I said, “Pardon?”, thinking that I didn’t hear him right but it turns out I may have, because the second time around I swear he said the same thing.

Afer much consideration, I began wondering if he was saying SNACK shops, because he did have a bit of an accent so maybe I just wasn’t hearing him clearly. But the second time, he said it a lot quieter O_O

That’s one I’ve never been asked, if that’s indeed what he asked. 

I told him that he can find anything he’s looking for on Lundy’s Lane.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with asking about or going to sex shops, I was just taken aback. Especially seeing as it’s a family campground. . . you know, usually with hundreds of children running around aimlessly.