Category Archives: Work Camping

Sep13

More Restroom Confusion

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I don’t really like to use the restrooms in the parking lot.

Although my co-worker does a good job cleaning them every morning, by the time I go in there, a lot of strangers’ butts have been on the seats, and there’s usually liquid (don’t think about it) and toilet paper on the floor. Besides, there’s hardly a moment when other people aren’t waiting to get in.

I try to remember to use the restroom immediately before I leave my campground for my shift in the parking lot. The restrooms in my campground see a lot less use than the ones in the parking lot, so the ones in the campground stay a lot cleaner. If I remember to go before I go, I can use a parking lot restroom just once during my shift.

I try to make my restroom visit before my co-worker leaves for the day. I like to know he’s up front handling things while I’m away.

The other afternoon, I made the short journey to the parking lot restrooms half an hour before my co-worker’s scheduled departure. When I walked up, three women were standing outside the two restrooms, just sort of milling about.

When did people quit standing in line? Is it something about being in nature that does away with people’s sense of order? (The trees aren’t standing in line, so why should I? Chipmunks don’t wait their turn, so why should I?) Is the refusal to line up some sort of rebellion against all thing elementary school? I don’t know, but this milling about instead of lining up sure annoys me. How am I supposed to know who goes in next if everyone is just standing around unorganized?

So I said to the three women standing there Are you in line? Are you in line? Are you in line?

The answers were Yes. No. Yes.

(I guess the No was waiting for the first Yes.)

A woman came out of the restroom on the right, and the first Yes went in. Less than a minute later, a man came out of the restroom on the left. The second Yes just stood there. I thought maybe she didn’t want to crowd the guy, but the door to the restroom closed completely and the guy disappeared from our view. Still the woman just stood there.

Finally I piped up with something along the lines of Aren’t you waiting? or Go ahead!

The woman started stammering…Oh, I thought…Isn’t that…? Then she looked up and saw that the signs on the wall show both restrooms are unisex

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The signs on the wall show both restrooms are unisex. (This photo was taken by me.)

and said, Oh, I see…as she finally started moving towards the door on the left.

She thought, because she’d seen a woman go into the door on the right and a man come out of the door on the left, there was a men’s restroom and a women’s restroom.

As she was heading toward the restroom, I understood what she had been thinking. I said, I’d have just gone into the men’s room.

She turned and looked at me with disbelief in her eyes. Really? It’s the 21st century and a woman using the men’s restroom is scandalous?

 

Sep12

If You’re Refusing to Pay

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Sometimes people who want to park in the parking lot also want to have philosophical discussions about whether or not they should have to pay to park on National Forest land.

One Wednesday morning, there were cars already parked in the lot when I arrived. I kept an eye on folks coming off the trail and asked them if they’d put their parking fee in the iron ranger. I asked one guy if he’d paid the fee, and he said he only had a $20 bill. I told him I could make change.

As I was writing the day pass he didn’t need since he was about to leave, he started talking about some lawsuit and court decision related to charging fees to park on public land. From what I understood, someone sued some governmental agency for charging folks a fee to park on public land. A judge decided it’s unlawful to charge people simply to park. In order to charge a day use fee, there has to be something more substantial than a portable toilet and a picnic table available for use; a day use area has to include some sort of improvement if a fee is to be charged.

I tried to justify the improvements this parking lot/day use area offers. Instead of one picnic table, we offer five picnic tables, and we don’t just have a port-a-potty, we have two gen-u-ine pit toilets in a (fancy?) little building. Also, we don’t offer only parking in the dirt; we have asphalt parking too.

Of course, the guy didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. He’d already made up his mind that he didn’t want to pay, and nothing coming out of my mouth short of no charge was going to make him happy. It didn’t even matter to him that the ruling he was talking about obviously didn’t apply to the (much improved) day use area/parking lot he was standing in.

Another time a guy wanted to have a debate while stopped in the parking lot’s entrance lane. I tried to answer his questions, although I honestly don’t know why none of a variety of federal and state passes apply to our parking lot. I don’t know why we don’t give military/disabled/disabled veteran discounts. I don’t know why folks have to pay to park even though it’s federal land which we as taxpayers own.

All I know is that my job is to stand there and collect $5 for each car parked within our gates.

So the guy driving the truck was asking me a bunch of questions I didn’t know the answers to, which was well and good for him, as he was sitting in his vehicle, out of the sun. I was standing in the sun, getting hotter and less patient.

Finally I said, If you’re refusing to pay…planning to follow up with…there’s not really anything I can do about it.

That’s the truth too. I can speak firmly and authoritatively, but I have no way to make people do anything. I don’t write tickets. (Thank goodness!) I don’t carry a gun. (Double thank goodness!) I have no access to a phone, so I can’t call anyone with authority to kick people out. If a visitor refuses to pay to park, I can’t grab him/her by the ankles, flip him/her upside down, and shake the money out of his/her pockets. All I can do if someone refuses to pay is shrug and walk away.

But all I had to say was, If you’re refusing to pay…and the guy changed his tune.

Oh! Oh no! He sounded surprised. I’m not refusing to pay, he said as if he were wondering how I’d possibly ever gotten that idea. He pulled out his money real fast. He wasn’t refusing to pay. Not him. He was paying!

I figure my hourly wage is too low to compel me to get into philosophical discussions with visitors. I’ll have to get paid $15 an hour before I feel obligated to engage in philosophical discussions.

Sep9

Spanish

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When I was in high school (way back in the last century), kids planning to go to college were encouraged to take two years of a foreign language. I took Spanish my junior and senior years.

In college, I think I took four semesters of Spanish, although I can only recall two of my instructors, a woman with blond curly hair and a mean old lady from Cuba.

I got As and Bs in my Spanish classes, mostly because I was able to learn the grammar and do well on tests. I hated speaking out loud in class. My accent was horrible, and my brain was terribly slow at figuring out what I wanted to say, remembering the correct words, conjugating the verbs, and getting the articles right. It was frustrating to know three-year-old kids in Mexico City and Madrid spoke better Spanish than I did.

Many years later, when I was in my mid-30s, I attended free Spanish classes taught by an American university student who was fluent in the language and had been to Latin America several times. In a room full of Midwesterners in their 20s who’d never learned a single word of Spanish, I was the star pupil, but my accent was still horrible and my slow brain kept my speech halting.

I hadn’t studied Spanish in years when I met Miz T, an American woman who spoke English as her native tongue, but had been studying and speaking Spanish for several decades. The next summer, Miz T and I befriended two Guatemalan sisters. The sisters spoke limited English (which was better than my limited Spanish), but when I wanted to communicate something complicated to either of them, I had to get Miz T to translate for me. I practiced my limited Spanish with Miz T and the Guatemalan sisters, but I made mistakes all the time.

One time I tried to tell one of the sisters that I had Miz T’s birthday card for her to sign. Instead of saying tengo la tarjecta, (I have the card), I told her that she had the card (tiene la tarjeta). Actually, I told her she had la carta, which is a playing card. She must have been really confused.

Yo quiero hablar español con mi amigas de Guatemala.

(I want to speak Spanish with my girlfriends from Guatemala.)

When I migrated to warmer lands last winter, Miz T let me take some of her Spanish lesson CDs. Each lesson only lasts half an hour. At first I diligently did a lesson every day. I had a lot of free time, and it was easy to keep up. Then I went to the city, the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, back to the city. I got busy working and playing, and my Spanish lessons were the first (self-imposed) obligation I let slip away.

When I got out to the woods, I barely thought about studying Spanish. I had nowhere to plug in my laptop, so I didn’t use it to do my lessons. I tried to write a letter in Spanish to Miz T and the sisters, but my vocabulary was lacking. I didn’t know important words like trees (arboles), mountain (montaña), or chipmunk (ardilla). One day I bought a small Spanish-English dictionary for ten cents at a thrift store, and I was back on the Spanish train, doing my lessons everyday (for at least a week).

One morning when I emerged from my van, I found campers who’d arrived in the night. As I spoke with them, I realized English was not their native (or primary) language. They were Spanish speakers.

When I explained the fees to one guy ($20 per night for camping, $7 per night for the extra vehicle), he looked confused. I slowed down and explained again, then decided to use a little of my Spanish language knowledge. I meant to ask Entiende? (Do you understand?). I realized ten minutes later that I’d asked Entiendo? (Do I understand?) I bet the camper was thinking Espero que entiende, gringa! (I hope you understand, white lady!)

Perdon. Necesito estudiar español ahora.

(Excuse me. I need to study Spanish now.)

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Sep8

Farewell to My Campground

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(This post is coming to you live from the restaurant/bar/general store/post office with internet access.)

At the company appreciation luncheon, I found out the camp hosts at the campground where I started the season were getting laid off the day after Labor Day. I wondered what that would mean to me.

The week before Labor Day Weekend, my supervisor gave me a choice. She said I could stay at the campground where I’ve spent the majority of the summer, or I could move back to the campground where I got my start as a camp host. In either case, I’d still be working five days a week at the parking lot. If I moved, I’d have access to electricity in the garage/office, but I’d have to drive my van on a 25 mile round-trip commute to the parking lot. If I stayed put, the other camp host in my area and I would work out a patrol schedule, and I’d get to drive the company truck on the 25 miles round-trip to check on the farther campground. I opted to stay where I was so I’d only have to drive the van my routine 6 mile-a-day commute.

On the Friday of Labor Day Weekend, my supervisor said she had bad news. Because the campground farther from the parking lot has yurts that need to be guarded (against theft? against squatters? against vandalism?), I was going to have to move. The other camp host near the parking lot will do a patrol to my campground to collect payments and check-in folks with reservations.

I’m not upset about having to move, but I’m not happy about all the driving and the gas I’ll use. (That six-mile-a-day round-trip commute really spoiled me.) And I will miss my tiny, cute campground.

The bigger campground is lovely too, and it has a place in my heart as my first. It’s where I got my feet wet (literally, on more than one occasion) as a camp host. But I will miss the place I spent the majority of the days and night of the (cultural, if not literal) summer season.

Sep6

Carry Me

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It was a weekend afternoon, and my co-worker had left for the day. A car pulled into the entrance to the parking lot, and I approached. The driver, the sole occupant of the car, was a very plain looking man, probably in his early 50s. I gave him my standard little talk: This is the parking lot. The trail begins across the street. The parking fee is $5.

With extreme seriousness, the man asked me if I were going to carry him on the trail.

Sometimes people (particularly male people) ask me questions, and I have no idea if they are serious or just trying to get a reaction (shock, laughter, outrage, a slap across the face—who knows?) out of me. I try to keep my reaction to such questions what I think of as no-nonsense pleasant. I pretend they are asking a serious question (even when the question is obviously ridiculous), and I answer their question in an equally serious manner.

So I said something along the lines of Oh, no sir. I won’t be carrying you. I did not smile, smirk, or giggle. Why should I pretend a question is funny when it’s really stupid? It’s much more fun (for me, at least) to pretend the question is for real.

He pursued his line of questioning. I wasn’t going to carry him? Really? He had to pay $5 and still walk? His expression never changed. For all I know, he was serious and he really did want me to carry him. There are a lot of weirdos in the world.

But I stayed pleasant, yet no-nonsense, detached. No sir. I won’t be carrying you.

He finally coughed up the $5 and drove away to park his car. He must have gone out on the trail, but I didn’t see him, and I didn’t think about him again until he returned to the parking lot after walking the trail. He stopped to ask me some questions. (I don’t remember now what his questions were.) He was very calm and seemed entirely serious. He hung around me for quite a while, for so long that I was getting uncomfortable. At one point I even walked away from him in mid-sentence so I could collect the fee from an incoming car. I thought he’d be gone when I turned away from the car, but, alas, he was still standing next to my chair.

We talked about the trail and the trees some more and finally—finally!—I could tell he was wrapping it up and would soon leave. He said he’d enjoyed himself, but really, it would have been better if I’d carried him.

Nope. Never going to happen, I told him.

If the joke (if it were a joke) had ever been funny (which it hadn’t), it had now moved into creepy, and I was glad to see him go.

After he left, I wondered if he had some kind of R. Crumb fetish where he fantasizes about tall, big-breasted, big-thighed women giving him piggyback rides.

(According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb,

R. Crumb, is an American cartoonist and musician. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture. His work has attracted controversy, especially for his depiction of women and non-white races.

 

I guess my thighs might qualify me as an R. Crumb type fantasy woman, but I’m not tall, and my breasts are not nearly big enough.)

I really have no idea what that tourist guy was all about. Maybe he gets off on being carried around by women in brown polyester-blend pants. Maybe he’s a man baby and wanted to pretend I was his mommy.

I don’t know what his story was, but I was glad to see him go.

Sep1

Smoking Pot

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It was almost time for me to leave the parking lot at the end of a busy Sunday in August. A car with a license plate indicating a person with a disability was in the vehicle had pulled in, and I walked over to move the bucket my co-worker and I had been using to reserve a parking space for just that reason.

As I stood there, bucket in hand, waiting for the car to make the loop, a pickup truck stopped next to me. The woman in the passenger seat leaned her head out to the open window.

We just wanted to let you know…she began.

I looked at her expectantly.

When we were on the trail…There were some kids, young adults…she quickly corrected herself. They were smoking pot.

They shouldn’t be smoking out there, I said, not even mentioning the pot. The woman in the truck seemed a little startled that I wasn’t upset about what the kids young adults were smoking.

I care exactly zero that people were indulging in marijuana. I do care that they were smoking on the trail. They should not have been smoking anything on the trail. The whole area was under a strict fire ban, and folks were only supposed to smoke (cigarettes or whatever) in a closed vehicle.

But what did this woman think I was able to do? As I told her, the Forest Service is in charge of the trail side of the highway, and the company I work for is in charge of the parking lot side of the road. I have no authority to enforce anything on the trail side of the road. (Any power of enforcement I have in the parking lot is tenuous at best.)

Even if I did cross the highway and assume authority, how would I know when I found the pot smoking kids young adults? Would I just say Were y’all smoking weed? Were y’all smoking weed? to every group of kids young adults I encountered on the path? I doubt anyone would have admitted to it even if they had been smoking pot out there.

Besides, there’s a mile and a quarter of trail and two possible official trail entrances/exits (as well as multiple off-trail ways to enter and exit). I could have walked the trail loop for hours and never encountered the people the woman had (allegedly) seen smoking pot. The smokers could have been halfway home while I was still searching for them.

Before the truck left the parking lot, the woman told me the pot smokers were the ones with the loud music. I spent the rest of my time at work waiting for people with loud music to exit the trail, but it didn’t happen before I left.

I just hope those potheads were being super careful.

Aug30

Questions

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At my jobs as a camp host and parking lot attendant, I am asked a lot of questions. After over three months, I’ve heard some questions so many times, they no longer surprise me.

Here’s a list of questions I am asked repeatedly (and my most common answers).

Where is the General Sherman tree? (In the Giant Forest in the Sequoia National Park)

What’s in that big tank on your campsite? (Water) Can I have some of it? (No)

Where are the rock slides? (I have no idea)

Is there a river or stream up here where we can get wet and cool off? (No)

How long is the trail? (About a mile and a quarter)

How long does it take to walk the trail? (That depends on how many trees you hug)

What’s the elevation here? (About 6400 feet)

How do I get to [L.A., San Francisco, the Sequoia National Park, Bakersfield, Las Vegas, Palm Springs]? (Answers vary)

Where is a water fountain/faucet/spigot where I can fill my water bottle/wash my hands/get water for my dog? (Not here)

Is there a place around here to go on a hike? (I have a map you can look at)

Do you take credit/debit cards? (No because there are no phone lines or internet access here)

Where’s the nearest ATM? (8 miles that way)

Where is Crystal Cave? (In the Sequoia National Park)

Can my dog go on the trail? (Yes, on a leash)

Where’s the closest place to get food? (11 miles that way, but it’s not very good and the people who work there aren’t very friendly)

Is there a coffee shop around here? (The restaurant 11 miles away sells coffee…if you mean a Starbucks, no)

Are there picnic tables here? (Yes, there are five picnic tables in the day use area)

Can we have a barbecue here? (Only on a gas grill, if you have a permit)

Which tree here is the oldest/biggest/tallest? (I don’t know)

Where is the nearest campground? (200 yards that way)

Is there a gift shop here? (No)

Where can I buy gas? (25 miles that way, 40 miles that way, or 40 miles the other way)

Are there bears here? (Yes, but they are timid because they are hunted here…you’re more likely to see a rattlesnake here)

Where’s the restroom? (In the little building in the middle of the parking lot)

Some questions take me by surprise.

One day a young Asian woman with a fairly strong accent asked me if we had a resting room. I thought she meant restroom (toilet, WC, el baño), so I told her it was in the little building in the middle of the parking lot. She was clearly exasperated and said not a restroom, a resting room. I was perplexed and just looked at her. She explained she wanted to leave her mother, an elderly woman using a cane, in a resting room with chairs and shade. I guess she wanted a waiting room. I told her there was no resting room in the parking lot, and she clearly expressed additional exasperation. I didn’t even try to explain to her that the only rooms in the area are the two with the toilets and a tiny one for storage.

Another time, a family asked me how to get to the Big Chief. I knitted my brow and shook my head. (I do something with my mouth too, when I don’t know the answer, but I don’t know how to explain the expression.) I told them I’d never heard of it. They said it is the 7th largest giant sequoia, and it’s supposed to be in the area. I still had no information about its location to offer.

(According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_giant_sequoias, there is a Chief Sequoyah tree located in the Giant Forest Grove of the Sequoia National Park. It is listed as the 26th largest tree with a height of 228.2 feet (69.6 m), a circumference of 90.4 feet (27.6 m), and a diameter of 28.8 feet (8.8 m). There’s also Red Chief in Long Meadow Grove. Wikipedia lists it as the 41st largest tree with a height of 245.0 feet (74.7 m), a circumference of 80.6 feet (24.6 m), and a diameter of 25.7 feet (7.8 m). Maybe the family was looking for one of these trees.)

One Thursday was the day of weird questions.

It started when two young women and their two fluffy little dogs exited the trail. They walked right up to me, and one of the women asked, Can you suggest a good hike for dogs? I was momentarily at a loss, then said, I don’t really hike, and I don’t have a dog, so I don’t know a good hike for dogs. The woman thanked me, and they all walked away. (Perhaps I should have offered use of my map, and the women and dogs could have consulted it and discussed their options.)

Later that day, I did pull out my map for a family to look at. The man asked me about the Pinnacle Trail. I said I’d never heard of it. He allowed that he possibly had the name wrong. I offered the map to him. He found the trail for which he was looking (the name of which has two syllables and does not begin with the letter “P”). They had a bunch of questions about the trail. I told them I’d never hiked it and could only say what I’d heard about it from other people. They kept asking me questions, and I kept saying I don’t know. Finally the oldest kid said, Are there big trees on the hike? I said, I don’t know; I’ve never been there, and I was done with them. Sometimes people insist I answer their questions, even after I’ve told them I can’t.

That afternoon I was patrolling at the nearby campground, and two men flagged me down to ask about the yurts. After I answered their questions ($75 a night, sleeps five, no cooking inside, bring your own bedding), they wanted to know about the closest rivers. I told them about the two rivers in the vicinity, and one guy asked me if the fishing were good. I said, I don’t know. I don’t fish. It seems to me he should have first asked me if I’d fished either river recently.

The strangest (or at least most strangely phrased) question of the day happened back at my campground. I was checking in two young Asian men (brothers). I pointed out my van and told them to let me know if they had any questions or problems. The one doing the talking asked if I stayed in the campground, and I said yes. The he asked, If someone arrives late at night, will you be here to assist them? I told him I would be here if someone arrived late, but when people arrive after dark, I stay in my van and check them in the next morning. I wondered what kind of assistance he had in mind. There are definitely certain kinds of assistance I will not provide!

Aug29

Apparently I Look Like a Psychic

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Crystal ball in handsTourists say a lot of thing that aren’t very sensible. Sometimes it seems like when their bodies go on vacation, their brains decide to take a vacation of their own. Perhaps the people who seem like idiots to me are actually very competent in their daily lives and only seem clueless when our paths cross.

One variation of tourist cluelessness is associated with the way we came. People ask me Should we go back to way we came? or Is the way we came the best way to go back? Apparently I look like a psychic, because I’m supposed to know where they came from and the route they took.

Perhaps people don’t realize there are three ways to get to where I work, but they obviously think there is more than one route, since they are asking me about their travel options.

The first time a woman asked me if they should go back the way we came, I was trying to figure out how to answer the question when her (I presume) husband barked at her in my silence She doesn’t know how we got here! So true!

I really do try to be polite to people. When they ask questions involving the way we came without giving me any additional information, I try to keep it light and say with a small smile I don’t know. How did you get here? But inside I’m grimacing and shaking my head.

Image courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/crystal-ball-in-hands-6101/.

Aug28

The Firefighter and the Dog

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I don’t what official company policy is, but I don’t ask firefighters to pay to park their firetrucks in the parking lot. It seems wrong for me to hassle them for five bucks when they could be called away at any moment to risk their lives to protect people and trees.

On a Sunday afternoon when my shift was almost over, three Forest Service firetrucks pulled in, and I waved them through. Moments later, a county firetruck pulled in, and I thought What the hell, and waved it through too. I’m not going to play firefighter favoritism. Either all firetrucks get in for free or none do. That day it looked like I was going with all.

I’d seen this county firefighter before, but it had been weeks, maybe month, and I don’t think we’d done more than exchange hellos in the past.

I hadn’t even been thinking about the firefighter until a car exiting the parking lot stopped and the driver leaned his head out of the open window. He said, firefighter…something something…let dog out…something…dog ran away…firefighter chasing dog…something something…

I looked at the driver and wondered what in the hell he was talking about, but I just said ok. (I’m trying to learn not to jump up and volunteer to be part of other people’s dramas.)

Some minutes passed, when who should stroll up but the county firefighter with a medium-size dog on a long, green leash. He looped the leash over the iron ranger and told me Fido (not his real name, as far as I know) was going to stay right there. I protested that I’d be off work in thirty minutes and said Fido was not leaving with me. I told the firefighter I live in my van and cannot have a dog. I was a little bit panicked. I can barely take care of myself. No way can I be responsible for a dog.

The firefighter told me the dog’s people were on the trail, and he wouldn’t try to leave the dog with me. He said he wanted to move his firetruck into one of the spots my co-worker and I try to reserve for people with disabilities. I told him fine. Who am I to go against a firefighter in the midst of an official dog rescue?

As he was moving the firetruck, three little Latina girls came up to visit the dog. I told them I didn’t know the dog and didn’t know if it would bite. Really, this dog was super mellow. He seemed to have no plans or desire to bite anybody.

The word had already spread through the parking lot that the dog had been left in the truck by its people. The little girls thought it was really mean of the people to leave such a nice dog in the hot truck. When their dad walked up, the girls told him about Fido’s plight, and they all solemnly agreed they would never leave their dog alone in a hot car.

After the firefighter parked his truck, he filled me in on what had happened. He’d come along and some “concerned citizens” had alerted him to the dog left in the hot camper shell on the back of a pickup. He opened something (I didn’t exactly understand his gestures of explanation), and Fido jumped out and took off running. So the firefighter had to chase Fido down and get him on the leash. (I’m sorry I missed seeing that part of the show.)

The dumb thing about leaving the dog in the hot camper with no water—where he could have died—is that dogs on leashes are allowed on the trail. I don’t know if the long green leash was Fido’s or if it belonged to the firefighter. Maybe Fido’s people had left him behind because they didn’t have a leash for him. (I’ve seen a surprising number of people this summer who have a dog in their vehicle, but no leash for it.) Fido couldn’t have been left behind because he was a nuisance; during the half hour he sat with me, he did not bark once, and he never strained against the leash. Mostly he just lay quietly and looked around.

After he got Fido’s people’s license plate number, the firefighter stood around to see if Fido’s people would show. He said no way was animal control going to come all the way out there, and he said he couldn’t give the people a ticket for leaving Fido in the heat. (I guess writing animal cruelty tickets is out of his jurisdiction.) He did say he was going to ask the sheriff to send the people a ticket through the mail. He also said he wasn’t one to yell, but he was getting more upset at Fido’s people the longer they were gone.

Then the firefighter said he and Fido were going to walk the trail and try to find the dog’s people. Soon after they left, my shift ended. As I was packing my chair and my backpack, a big, blue pickup truck with a camper on the back stopped near where I was standing and the driver (who was firmly middle-age and old enough to know better than to leave an animal in an enclosed space on a hot day) said he’d heard a fireman had his dog. I told the man that the firefighter was looking for him and had walked off with the dog in hopes of finding him.

The man in the blue truck drove off, but was back when I returned from putting my co-worker’s bucket in the storage room. He said he’d gone to the campground next door, but the firefighter and the dog weren’t there. I pointed to the firetruck and told Fido’s man that the firefighter would be back eventually.

Eventually? he asked, as if he just couldn’t believe how he was being inconvenienced.

The man was pacing at the front of the parking lot. I got in my van and made the loop to exit. As I pulled out onto the highway, I saw Fido and the firefighter walking toward Fido’s man.

Now I have a little crush on the firefighter. I don’t much about him other than his name, his profession, and that he likes dogs, but I keep making up little stores about him in my mind. (Hmmmmm, I think little stories like that are called “fantasies.”)

I’d never realized rescuing a dog could make a man so seem sexy.

Aug27

Feces on the Floor

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The day started like a normal Wednesday.

I’d slept really well, after hardly sleeping Sunday and Monday nights. I woke up around 6:15. Even after two days off, I wasn’t raring to go, but I rolled out of bed and put on my uniform. After sweeping the restrooms, I cooked and ate my breakfast. Then it was time to get the company truck and go on patrol.

On Wednesdays, the hosts at the two other campgrounds on the mountain have the day off. I have to drive to both campgrounds, make sure the garbage cans aren’t overflowing, check-in any campers who have recently arrived, and put toilet paper in the restrooms if necessary. I also have to drive through the group campground to make sure no one is squatting there. And, because my co-worker at the parking lot also has the day off on Wednesdays, I have to clean the two restrooms there.

On this particular Wednesday, I first went to the closer campground, planning to go to the farther one late in the afternoon, after I’d put in my time at the parking lot. After picking up the trash and talking to some campers, I got in the company truck (a Ford Ranger, which is like driving a sports car to me after lumbering along in my van) and did my rounds through the (empty) group campground. Then I headed to the parking lot to pick up the trash and clean the restrooms.

Both trash cans in front of the restrooms were full, so I pulled out the bags and replaced them with new ones. Then I psyched myself up to clean the restrooms.

The restrooms in the parking lot get a lot of use. My co-worker jokes that if the trees are the most popular attraction, the restrooms are the second most popular attraction. Because the restrooms get so much use, they tend to be dirty and smell terrible. Also, people throw a lot of toilet paper on the floor. I’m grossed out when I have to pick up toilet paper, and I don’t know where all it’s been. (I might feel more grossed out if I knew exactly where the toilet paper has been.)

I opened the door of the restroom on the left and was greeted by the sight of a pile of feces on the floor eight inches from the toilet. Who does such a thing?

I can only imagine two scenarios. The first is a human being walked into the restroom, closed and locked the door, pulled down his/her pants, and shat on the floor. The second is a person allowed his/her dog to enter the restroom and defecate on the floor.

Who does that?!?!?

I’ve tried to think of a reason why it might seem acceptable to shit (or allow one’s dog to shit) on the floor of a public restroom. I’ve got nothing.

To put it delicately, as opposed to situations where I’ve discovered feces on the toilet seat and on the restroom wall, it did not appear that the person who shat on the floor had experienced an emergency situation. This floor shitting appeared to be a deliberate act.

And if a person somehow thought it was ok to let his/her dog defecate on the restroom floor, the human should have picked it up.

The reason why didn’t really matter, as I had to clean it up regardless of the circumstances that put it there. I rolled up my sleeves, took off my ring, and steeled myself to do what had to be done. I grabbed a thick wad of toilet paper and removed the fecal matter from the floor. The good news was that it had been sitting there a while and was firm–and to be a bit graphic here–crusty. More good news was that I didn’t notice any smell.

After I picked up the feces, I sprayed everything down with a chemical cleaner we use called TNT. It’s supposed to kill germs, so I sprayed it all over the floor and all over the inside and outside of the toilet. Then I used water from the tank in the back of the truck to give everything a thorough rinse. There was some fecal crust adhered to the floor, so I had to grab a stiff bristle brush from the truck and use it to scrub away the crust. I was grateful for the brush’s long handle.

Finally my work there was done, and picking up the toilet paper from the floor of the second restroom didn’t seem so gross.

I’ve had many shit jobs in my time, but this job (that I actually like) has required me to deal with the most literal shit.