Uh, 13 Doodle, We have a Code Brown in Balsam

My job this past summer was working as a Maintenance Worker at Grundy Lake.

I wasn’t the person who would direct you to your site.

I wasn’t the person who helped you change sites and sold you firewood.

I wasn’t the person who put on the nature shows, telling you about bears, and bugs, and what’s what about nature.

I didn’t guide you through any of the free trails Grundy has to offer, pointing out interesting things along the way.

I wasn’t the person who told you to quiet down from partying at midnight.

I wasn’t the person who told you you have to leave your site at 2, and do you realize it’s 2:30?

I wasn’t the person who you called to deal with your noisy neighbours, who also happened to be cutting branches from the forest for their fire.

I wasn’t any of these people, but I was the person who made sure you would want to come back.

I was the person who kept the main attraction clean.

Yes, I do mean that I made sure that branches weren’t overgrowing the roads and the sites.

Yes, I do mean that I mowed grass and trimmed the trails.

Yes, I do mean that I clipped back those prickly bushes from by the parking lots, and around your site.

But when I say that I keep the main attraction clean, I do not mean nature.

I mean the toilets.

You might say I deal with the real ‘business’ of maintaining the Park.

You may laugh, scoff at the idea that the toilets are the main attraction, but would you be so willing to go camping if the only option while camping with a little more than 100 other campers (in your AREA) was a couple of thunder boxes?

This is a hole, dug approx. 6 feet into the ground, with a box with a hole in it set on top. Bring your own toilet paper, and a flashlight if it's dark.

Grundy is known for it’s privacy ratings, but we can’t exactly make this private… every once in a while we have to go and fill in the hole, dig another one a little ways off, and put the box back on top. Putting another box, or some other kind of privacy thing around it wouldn’t work.

Yes, While the back-country sites have thunderboxes, their excuse is that they are for the people who want to go roughing it. That is for the people who want to canoe across the lake with their suff, and set up tents where they can find flat places. I think there are about 4 or 5 backcountry sites in Grundy… We don’ have to go there and clip it back, we leave that to the Rangers close to the area (Ontario Parks Rangers, a summer job for people who are turning 17 the year they sign up for it, free room and board and food, minimum wage.)

For everyone else, there are the outhouses.

We clean the outhouses.

We clean them every day.

We sweep them out, get rid of webs, wipe down the seats (with cleaning spray and a rag) to each and every set of outhouses.

There are 36 sets, I believe, in Grundy.

3 of those sets are set up as one side of one outhouse is mens, and the other is women’s.

The rest have two outhouses at each spot, which means that there are 66 individual outhouses that two Maintenance workers clean.

Every day.

 

This is what one Grundy Lake outhouse looks like. Right next to it, another would be set up, but for girls. Singles would be one of these buildings, with one gender for each door.

We also paint these when the paint starts getting cracked… I think I painted about 6 sets of outhouses this past summer. My coworkers complained about t, but I liked painting them. It used up time, and I like painting in general.

The inside looks like this... But this summer we painted the insides cream rather than green.

The toilets at Grundy actually flush as well, which was nice until I realized that it means that It can also get clogged.

Ladies flushing pads, and moms (and dads too) flush diapers… Why YES it’s the perfect size to go down that hole, now lets flush it… oh, right, that adds water and makes it expand! Oh gosh, it’s clogged!

What a surprise.

Really.

Anyway, while working, we drive around in the MNR trucks, and when we get radio calls (all students were 13 _your name_, and if you were calling someone, lets say their code name was 3-4, you would say “3-4 read 13 _your name_” and end with “13 clear”. Calls for you from this person would be “13_your name_ read 3-4” ), and one of the most common were for Code Browns.

Can you guess what it is?

Well, it’s when someone misses in a big way.

I figure that some of these people are holding themselves up while taking a dump, otherwise how did they get it all over the seat? On the floor? On the walls? (methinks this last one is some REALLY upset stomach)

I’m certain some kids think it’s funny to poop in awkward places, because I found a present behind one of the toilets once.

Yeah. my pictures look kind of unreal, and not really appropriate… also, for the majority, I haven’t had my camera, and even though I’ve been blogging for  while now, I still haven’t gotten to the point here I can see poop n the floor and splattered on the walls and think “Hey, I should get a picture of that.”

For the really bad ones we use a pressure washer (water tank in back of truck), but otherwise use a ‘bunny tail’.

This is a Bunny tail. No rabbits were harmed for the use of this.

Yeah. Bunny Tail is how I was introduced to it.

It’s gross, and there’s a lot of groaning about it, but we do it.

There are risks.

The nauseating smell, the campers who complain in he first place, the risk of a backwash of ‘shit-mist’ from the pressure-washer (hide behind door is the preferred method), along with the feeling of “Oh, nooooooo!” when the pressure washer runs out of gas and you have to leave the Scene of the Crime to get more….

But we do it.

Because we are the Maintenance workers.

We wear our coveralls with pride.

We clomp in our Steel-toed boots knowing that we’ve done a job-well-done.

While in our trucks, we still wave to campers, even knowing that there’s a certain percentage of assholes out there among you who we will have to deal with, them and their shit, and are happy when people wave back.

Yes, we wonder if the reason you smiled so widely is because you know we have to go clean up the smear you left behind, or if perhaps its because you’re happy that that Code Red (only on the female side, guess what it is) will soon be cleaned up, but we wave and smile anyway. (P.S. we are actually required to wave in the beginning, but after a week or so you get used to it and do it intentionally)

No, we are not Gate workers, we are not Naturalists, we are not Park Wardens.

We are Maintenance workers.

We clean up your shit.

Um… Back?

Back from Grundy, the leaving took a bit longer than I’d thought it would (i.e. I thought we’d leave by about 10, instead we left at 12:30 and got back to toronto at around 5 since we stopped to get ice cream and to get Lexy some boots), and saying goodbye to my co-workers was a bit less tearful than I’d expected.
I’m not saying that that wasn’t a relief (who else has no idea what to do when crying/with people who are crying?), but it was a considerable difference from Rangers last year.
While this year it was a case of “Yeah, had a great two months, hope to see you next year, e-mail me!” and a hug goodbye.
Rangers was a full out bawl-fest for every girl who left, and every time this flood of tears dried out as the last bit of dust settled, someone else’s parents would pull up in their car, and it would all start again.
I left Rangers with a wet shirt, and dirty sweats.
So I’ll be writing a bit about how I’ve been cleaning shitters (out houses), mowing grass, cleaning more toilets, answering stupid questions from campers (if you camp, don’t take it personally, but theres only so many times you can answer someone that yes, there ARE bears, as this is bear country), and about the dangers of cleaning toilets (can you guess what a ‘Code Brown’ would be?)…
For now I bid you viewers good night, and good reading.

Gone, Gone, Going…? Now? No. … Now?

I am currently waiting for laundry to be done, and feeling alternating feelings (no duh) of chest constricting stress and  fluttery anxiety, and chest constricting anticipation and fluttery excitement.

I leave for Grundy Park tomorrow, probably at the crack of dawn should I ask Dad now, and I am starting and finishing my packing today.

Yes I’m late, but I’m a procrastinator almost by nature. I’m procrastinating waiting for laundry to be done, because a while ago, I had my laundry waiting for me to bring it upstairs, and it was sitting in front of our freezer, which was left open, and it leaked.

I moved my stuff after it got wet, and left it down there to be done again when the washer was next free.

Mold grew.

I washed it twice.

I am washing it again, to get the sour-ish smell from it before I go.

I am not packing my stuff into a suitcase, because my Mom says that it’d be easier to pack in the car if it were in these huge, 3fx1fx2f ish plastic bins, so I have a plastic bin in my room, in the hall outside of my room, one downstairs by my nearly-done laundry, and one in the front room of my house.

Scratch that, I have TWO (Three) in the front room, because I need one separate for sleeping things such as sheets and pj’s.

It feels very much so as if I should be going right now, but then the chest crushing gets tighter with the feeling of Holy-I’m-Not-DONE-PACKING! untill I reassure myself and my insane part that no, we aren’t leaving right yet.

And then the sane part of me thinks of something.

What if I forget something!!!

Insane hears this as well, and slaps Sane on the head.

It’s because we’re not done PACKING! Get to work we’ve got like an hour to get everything together and in the car!

 Sane runs into a wall.

DOOM!

No, we aren’t leaving untill tomorrow, I reassure myself. And Laundry cannot be rushed.

And so I stand in front of the Door of Panic with my trusty Gandalf Wizard Staff solidly blocking the way.

From myself.

*sigh* Am I sure that there is actually an insane side, and it’s not just me?

Yes. I just happen to be strongly influenced by myInsane side when writing. Every writer has this part of them, it just so happens that mine feels the need to talk to me occassionally.

Insane people are in Sane people, and neither part are going past me to the Panic Room, because a)nothing gets done there, and b) NONE SHALL PASS!

All LOTR Gandalf the Grey jokes and references aside, I shall finish the Laundry of Impending Doom, cut it down to be hidden away in the Boxes of Plastic Containment, sealed away untill they are needed to fight the foe called Nakedness.

Shoot I gotta find myself some nail clippers, and perhaps a few more pairs of wool work socks.

Did you know that Costco has awesome underwear on sale? You wouldn’t think so, but they are comfortable.

A while ago, how many days ago matters not, Mum brought me to Costco to stock up on food items that will help in my quest of survival for the coming 2 months.

Working at a park is different from working as a Ranger in many ways, and one of which is that we don’t have chefs to cook and buy our food.

 For the last couple of weeks Dad has been storing away chili and stew and hamburger patties in the freezer, either in sealed plastic bags or in Tupperware , so that for at least the first two weeks of no-trips-into-town-to-buy-food I might be able to survive. I am extremely thankful that we get a lot of freezer space at Grundy (everyone, not just me, though I’d like to believe I AM that special).

I will also be leaving with print out and digital recipes of such things as stew, easy stroganoff (which is not a loose, sexually active Swedish general), salsa-couscous chicken, and many-layered salads.

We bought juice, meat, some veggies, cookies (the important things), underwear (they’re nice 😀 Sane: Don’t SAY that! Insane: BWAHAHA!) , and a whole slew of bread for me to make my main source of sustenance for during the day: Sandwiches.

To the sound of Pocahontas’ “Savages”:

Sandwiches! Sandwiches! Hardly ever Eaten! Sandwiches! Sandwiches! Where is my Mayonnaise?!

Credited to my friends (from rangers) sister. Google Map Delta. It’s a place. They live there.      😀

WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

No.

Food is packed away, and I think that I’ll go through the plastic bins tha I have already and sort out the mixes of shirts, sweaters, pants, and shorts from in them.

I will probably have way more than I need, but…

Rather have more than I need than not enough.

Right.

 BUT WHAT IF SOMETHING IS FORGOTTEN???!!!

No. Grundy is 4 hours or so away, and the Parents will be visiting fairly regularly! Back!!! Back from the gates of Panic!

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

 So tomorrow I’m gone, or going, or whatever, and I’ll probably be freaking out.

By the end of the first week I’ll likely be fine, but then I’ll start being paranoid about what, exactly I’ll have forgotten.

Because I will have forgotten SOMETHING.

But that is edging around my Gandalf staff, (BWAHA!), so we shall move on.

I was procrastinating a bit earlier, reading one of the books I liberated from my Mom’s school (they have a better library, and because she’s a teacher there, she can take them out over the summer), called “The Book of Lost Things” by John Connolly. The link will bring you to his site on it.

It’s good.

Like, Really good.

Most times I can predict what will happen at the end of the book by the time I get through the first 3-5 chapters, and I had a bit of a feeling about what would happen, but so many things happened that promised a slightly different outcome, I couldn’t put it down.

Of course, since Lexy probably won’t be reading this untill I’m long gone, I can freely admit that instead of folding laundry a bit earlier, i was reading this. I put it away any time someone came down to the basement, and started fiddling with laundry.

I still got a lot done, even while reading it.

…Weird.

The dryer just made it’s “I’m-done” jingle noise (sounds a bit like a small part of an ice-cream truck’s jingle), and this is getting kind of long, so I’ll bid you all goodbye for now. Whether I post small segments about my work for the next 2 months depends on if the claim to internet access is true or not.

Ciao!

~Doodled93~

Insane: THERE’S NO MORE TIME!

P.S. Afterthought: It is now about 10:28 pm, and I pretty much have everything packed, but I look at my 2 bins of clothing, my 1/4 bin of work clothes, and my slightly bursting bin of sleeping stuff (it has a sleeping bag and pillow in it), and I feel I am missing a lot. Clothing-wise. I know I am not anywhere done my toiletries packing, as i currently have only JUST put the all-important nail clippers in my tinier toiletries bin, and I have no swim towel, no shower towel, and all of my electronics (including an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT digital alarm clock) are scattered around my house. Mostly uncharged too. Anyone else finish packing and look at your stuff and thing “nope. Not done.”? Also, pj’s is underlined in red, as well as bin. That is rediculous!