What Would I Do Without You?

I have to take a minute here and thank all of you great readers for keeping up with my recently boring blog about being sick.  I'm not sure I would have survived so far without logging on every morning and making fun of an annoying situation.  You kept me going this last week, that's for sure.

I just spent another long 24 hours coughing up absolutely nothing.  What more fun can you have on a Monday.  Tuesday of course brings the Magic Kingdom.  I'm pretty sure they won't be as kind if I sit for four hours passing germs around like they are a dime a dozen.

It's day six on the couch, but at least I'm in good company.  Mr. Cooper is just happy to have his Mom home, even if she is a hacking mess.

There were a couple of last minute problems at the Pumpkin Patch I haven't related to you.  I might as well pass along the current state of the next generation.  The Patch hires mostly high school kids to work the attractions, including the snack bar.

It's a win-win situation.  They get money, they get experience and they get work credit.  Somehow the second "win" never seems to happen.  That would be the part that benefits the Patch.  Actually, in a couple of cases, that did happen.  One girl showed up every single day ON TIME and worked the Barnyard Bounce like a pro.  She even picked up a whistle on her own volition to make the school kids listen.  She was the exception!

The boys didn't seem to understand the rules, even though they were written at the entrance to their attraction.  They did however have lots of fun when they worked the slide alone.  They walked up with the next three kids, then slid down to walk up with the NEXT three.  Oh they loved that, until they forgot to take the gunny sack with them and slid down on their new levis, bouncing two feet high off the bottom end.  OUCH!

The snack bar should have been easier, but then again, everyone does not have a calculator in their head.  Time and again they added up 4 + 4 + 3 to get 16.  That seemed to be the magic number, because no matter what they added up, it always came to 16.  Sadly they even used their fingers tapping on the counter to get to that number.  Hopefully these won't be our newest accountants.

Closing the snack bar was another story altogether.  I went through the entire procedure night after night with every girl at least twice.  One night I left early.  It was a test.  They failed.

I came in the next morning to find the hot dog machine NOT covered, meaning it had to be completely re-cleaned due to the dusty midnight cleanup.  The nacho machine was covered, but ON.  Yup .... left on all night long to get that plastic cover nice and hot.  I opened it up to find a bag of cheese still inside, along with about a cup of cheese smeared over the entire gear section.  WHAT?

The crock pot was turned on high, with absolute NOTHING in it.  The crock itself was so hot I couldn't touch it.  They forgot to turn that off too.  Common sense folks ..... it's out there somewhere!!

I guess what it boils down to is teaching.  I never thought of all the work I did as a kid as being a learning experience, but at least my parents taught me enough to have a little forethought and a little common sense.  Maybe that's just something you get when you're old, I don't know.

It became my goal to teach those kids just a little, by asking them what do you do now?  What's going to happen if?  What if I do THIS!!  At least someone's house may not burn down because they covered the nacho machine and left it on high heat.  There's more, but there's no use beating a dead horse.

I've figured it out, I have exactly three days of food left before I will be required to log on to Walmart for another pickup.  It's also how long I have to sit on the couch.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll open up one of those bins of fabric.  I'll place it on the table in front of me so I have something to look at.  Not sew, just look at.  A change of scenery might be nice.