About Last Night

HAPPY CAMPERS

I volunteer at a small state park campground in Florida for three months and  live there in my wheel estate.   One of my numerous assignments  is to keep one restroom building tidy.  I'm not on a set schedule, as long as it gets done once or twice every 24 hours or so, we have happy campers.

Last night around 3am, I woke up very cold, so I drank two cups of caffeinated coffee to warm the body and soul. I decided to go clean. 

At that unholy hour, I reasoned it would be easy to mop up the mud tracks on the floor leftover from the drizzly day.

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA

I restocked the paper goods in the ladies room, then I swabbed the floors with this mega mop that is so heavy the dirt doesn't dare stick to the floor. I don't officially close down  the ladies room when I clean because the next restroom is a half mile away in the picnic area. I work around the women, but at 3am, all campers were quiet and presumably sleeping.  It made my work go very fast. Maybe the wet floor would actually dry before someone walked across it. YAY!

Next I popped over to  the men's room, after knocking on the door and calling inside to see if any patrons were around. Nobody answered. I went inside, checking the stalls for their current paper inventory, then headed towards the locked supply cabinet.

OOPS!  

I slammed on brakes in my silent Crocs  (if you've ever worn Crocs then you know they are super quiet ultra comfy shoes).

Crocs, best shoe I've ever owned

I had not put the "Closed for Cleaning" sign outside.  While I don't officially close the women's room, I do close  the men's room while I work because I don't want the men in there with me. I leave the door propped open with the movable sign-on-a-pedestal, so I can hear and see if any males are waiting outside. I generally tell them I will be done in 30 seconds, stop my work, lock the supply closet then hand the restroom back over. I can always catch up later.

But in the eerie hours of 3am in the dark silent campground, I had forgotten to pull the closed sign-on-a-pedestal out of the bushes where I hide it.

PLEASE NO HEART ATTACK NOW

I walked over to  the entrance door to go back outside, swinging it open when I came face to face, nose to nose with a very sleepy elderly gentleman who was reaching out to open the door  but was now yelling  something that sounded like "Aaaaaackkkkk!"  while jumping about three feet backwards.

I muffled a girly scream of frightened surprise.  He took even more steps backwards.

I stumbled and mumbled through an apology that I was just here to mop the floor, but the shock on his face, those big round eyes the size of saucers, his jaw wide open, he just stared at me in total shock.

Maybe he wasn't awake when he set out to hike to the restroom at 3 or 4am but he surely was now from the look of those wide open startled eyes.  (If he was the least bit constipated, this sudden scare had probably just cured that too!)

Back at my wheel estate, I plowed my leftover energy into housekeeping around  the mini motorhome.  Growing tired, I went back to bed for a little snooze.

THE REST OF THE STORY

Mid afternoon the bark ranger and I were out walking with our bucket and litter picker policing the vacated campground sites for errant debris, cigarette butts, raccoon picnics and the leftover man made detritus humans  scatter while soaking up nature.  It can be amusing at times. I've found clean socks in the grass, under pants in the middle of the road and a blanket thrown up in the trees.

Litter picker and reaching tool. A must have for anyone who desires a longer arm or further reach.

I walked passed one campsite when I noticed there was the man, his wife and another couple chatting. He looked over at me, smiled and waved, apparently remembering me from the 3am encounter of the weird kind.

HOW'S THAT AGAIN?

He turned to his friends saying loud enough for me to hear "She's the one I met in the men's room in the middle of the night!"

I am so glad his wife wasn't holding  an iron frypan, but after a pregnant pause, everyone burst out laughing.