To Sleep, Perchance to Dream....

I opened one eye to look at the clock. It was 2am and I still hadn’t fallen asleep. No worries I thought to myself, I didn’t really have to rise until 7:30. At 3:30am, I dragged myself out of bed and added 2 melatonin tablets to the Ambien cr I had already ingested at 11:00pm. By 4:30am, the jingle for the old Pepsodent gum commercial had infiltrated my subconscious and I was on the brink of a total breakdown. As I lay in bed trying to think of something else, the rhythmic breathing of my husband set a new background beat. I am always amazed at his ability to sleep whenever and wherever he chooses. I tossed and turned in bed, trying to jar him awake so that he could experience just a small amount of the sleep deprivation I had to endure on a nightly basis. But the tossing of the covers combined with the rhythm of his breathing only changed the tune in my brain from “You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!” to “in the jungle, the quiet jungle, the lion sleeps tonight….”

At 5:30am I surrendered to the god of insomnia and went downstairs to the family room. As I flipped the light on, Snow, our white Shepherd was sheepishly walking across the room. She glanced back at me with a look of annoyed resentment that I had invaded her space and caused her to move from the large overstuffed leather chair to the dog bed by the sliding glass door. The reluctant wag of her tail confirmed my suspicion that she heard me coming down the steps. I didn’t have to look at the chair to know she’d broken the rule of no dogs on the furniture. I was sure I could hear the cushion refill with air and there would be a tell tale amount of white hair left behind.

I clicked on the TV remote and channel surfed for about 30 minutes trying to find something worth watching. At last--I hit the power button, satisfied that if I ever do get a good night’s sleep, I won’t be missing anything worthwhile.
Stepping into the laundry room, I threw a load of dark colored clothes in the washer and hit the start button; making a mental note to throw them in the dryer before leaving for work. Then I trudged back up the steps to take a shower, before going to the office.

There is nothing that can forecast your day as much as the first cup of coffee in the morning. No horoscope or fortuneteller can be as accurate as that first sip. If it’s satisfying and smooth, you can approach the morning chores with great expectations. A bitter taste will start the day with a foul mood, if it’s too hot and burns your tongue, it will make you mistrust everyone you come in contact with for the day. This morning the first cup was like an elixir for the gods. It held the promise of a fantastic day! I put the register drawer in and unlocked the front door as the first customers walked passed the window. They were members of our seasonal “coffee club” who gathered each morning under the gazebo in front of the office. Laura had baked a fresh coffee cake to share with anyone who joined them. Yep, satisfying and smooth……a good day in the making!

Laura’s husband Peter was a maintenance manager for an office complex. He was telling us about on office full of furniture that was destined for the dumpster. Among the doomed, there were some conference tables he thought we might be interested in for our adult lounge. Wow, good coffee, delicious cake and a dumpster dive without having to actually crawl into the dumpster! This day was getter better and better. I decided to treat myself to another cup of coffee.

The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful, and in the campground business, that’s a good thing. We were prepared with our days events and every customer seemed to be pleased with their experience. It just doesn’t get better than this I thought to myself. I envisioned myself atop a lily pad floating on a still pond. I love my job! These people make it a pleasure to come to work in the morning. Life is good!

What I forgot to mention earlier, while I was expounding on the virtues of a good
cup of coffee, was that like everything else, there is a limited shelf life. The caffeine will eventually wear off, and sooner or later you have to ingest something other than coffee and cake to survive. I believe it to be a slow process that starts with the introduction of anything other than that great cup of coffee that makes the day’s compass needle start to shift. At first it’s not discernable, but by lunchtime you realize that your lily pad is now detached from its root, and has floated out of the pond and down a raging stream getting bashed on the rocks as it is tossed and shoved toward the river.

The first impact was the report from an employee that one of the weekend tent campers, from what we call the primitive section, has cut down a tree behind their campsite. My pulse soared to new heights. I had to reassure myself that I had, in fact, taken my blood pressure pill before I went to bed last night. Lucky for the camper, I couldn’t leave the store at that time and called Clayton, my husband, on the cell phone to go up to site 89 quickly before they could cut any more. Not so lucky for anyone else who might need to cross my path for the next couple of hours until my pressure leveled out. Moments later, I saw Clayton’s green F250 pull in past the office and turn into the campsite road. The need of vengeance was tugging at my soul and, I knew Clate was too level headed and diplomatic to exact any. He is after all, of English & Irish decent. Italians are much more genetically capable of revenge. I tried to find solace in knowing at least the people would be told to pack up and leave the premises; at most he’d get a few token dollars for the damage. No amount of money could replace the tree that had taken years to grow and survive in the clay soil and rocks. It wasn’t even possible to plant a smaller one and have it survive. The best thing would be to cut it down to ground level and cover it with dirt and leaves so that it appeared there was never a tree there at all. To leave any trace would plant the idea to play Paul Bunyan to the next group of campers to pitch their tent in that area.

News however, does spread fast in a campground, and we could rest assured that no other camper would make that same mistake this weekend. I glanced at the clock and realized that it was already 3pm. If we could just hold out another 7 or 8 hours, we could go home.

At 3:45pm, my lily pad was dashed against another rock. I walked into the back room to wash my hands. As I turned on the faucet, I heard a sucking sound and not so much as a drop of water fell. Rushing down the hall with the urgency of Paul Revere, I conveyed the message that the well was off. Again I saw the F250 pull out of the office headed towards the well house. The reset button was hit and within minutes all was well. One would think no one was the wiser, until you walked into the restrooms and had to flush all twelve toilets. My morning elixir of the gods was all but a distant memory.

If there were any other mishaps that afternoon, the staff knew enough not to bring them to my attention. They have learned the hard way that I possess a rather short fuse and once lit, there was no time to put enough distance between them and me not to be affected by the concussion of the resulting explosion.
Cashing out the register and running credit card reports are the last deed of the day. I did that while Clate did a quick run through cleaning of the restrooms and showers.

Engaged women everywhere should be sure that no matter what the premarital agreement encompasses, a clause is needed that exempts them from cleaning public toilets. This has proven to be the wisest thing I have ever done. When we first talked marriage, I stated I would not work at the campground. Even before the business became ours, it was obvious that this would not be practical. However, compromising with that agreement, gave greater leverage to sticking to the toilet agreement. After 30 years of marriage, I am still quite proud of that negotiation!
We stumbled home at 11:30 pm, another day closer to the end of the camping season, and the upswing of the wolf watching season. Gone are the days when the campground and store closed the end of October and the building became our storage unit for anything that was in the way at the house.

You don’t realize how much useless stuff you shift from place to place rather than dispose of it permanently, until you have to use the space in which you “temporarily” stored the stuff you weren’t using. The month of March was devoted to clearing out and shifting everything from the office, back to the house. Scientist have not yet discovered how to do the genetic altering that would be required to change the habits of generations of shifting and stashing useless stuff. We are a species of “hunters and gatherers”. It has nothing to do with food and survival, but rather the unending search for and collection of junk, and spaces in which to put it. I suspect this was the true reason we mortgaged ourselves to the teeth, spent our grandchildren’s inheritance, and built the addition to the main building which now houses our office, gift shop, lounge, kitchen and stockroom, as well as additional shower rooms. At first we looked around and had no idea what we’d do with all the additional space. But, alas, “stuff” is like water, it will seek its own level and seems to spread very rapidly to cover any open space around it.
When I walked down the hall, I could smell the familiar smell of sour laundry. The mental note to put the clothes in the dryer apparently went unread. I turned the washer on to rewash the same clothes once again.

By midnight I was sliding under the sheets again. This time I took the two melatonin capsules at the same time as the ambient cr. I woke feeling refreshed like I slept the night through. It still seemed too dark so I glanced at the clock. It was only 1:30 in the morning. I closed my eyes hoping I’d fall back asleep before another jingle entered my head…. Too late, the 60’s CD that was playing in the car two days ago began to play in my head and soon “Who wrote the book of love” got stuck on replay. Amazing how songs hit the charts with very few words repeated over and over!

I breathed a grateful sigh of relief when daylight streamed through the window. O.K., so maybe the window and screen are a little too dirty and dusty to allow light to stream. Let’s call it more of a glow. It’s hard to worry about clean windows when you are only in the house to sleep. Back in the office I became dizzy with anticipation of the coffee forecast. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep and too much melatonin. At any rate, the first sip was like a full body massage. Mmm smooth and satisfying! A good day.