PAGING ALL SMART ASSES

May 1st....that date used to have a whole different meaning to me. Frankly it used to scare the crap out of me. I would wake up on that day and sigh heavily. The arrival of May 1st means that my life is about to change big time. For roughly the next 6 months life is anything but normal. Don’t get me wrong, I obviously still enjoy what I do or I wouldn’t be here still but the arrival of May 1st means I probably won’t drive south of Bracebridge more than 6 times in the next 6 months, sad but true. It also means I will be sleeping with my phone on my bed because it usually rings in the middle of the night several times a season. I have to drive at least one person to the hospital every year because they injured themselves whilst partying hard, when they lost all motor skills and had some sort of fall with several stitches being the final outcome. I am not exactly proud when I arrive at the hospital and tell the nurse I went to high school with that another kid from Cleves has a party injury (the UPIs are the worst...Unidentified Party Injury...because I often haven’t put all of the pieces together about how the person got hurt)!!

Back in my day I don’t remember it being as hard core. I do very clearly remember watching one of my best friends fall off the bed because the beach chair she was sitting in...on the bed, folded up with her inside it and they both toppled off the side. No injuries just hysterical laughter mostly by me ...ahhhhhh to be a kid again but I digress. Now when I wake up on May 1st I don’t panic at all because I know that in the blink of an eye our spring conference season will be over and families will be arriving. In another blink the families leave, conference season has started up again and before you know it Thanksgiving Weekend is here. I cannot get over how fast the seasons fly by the older I get.

We now have over 15 walkie talkies to chat with each other and they are all over the property at any given time. Every year just before family season, I have a meeting with the bellhops and managers and remind them all to watch what they say to each other over the walkies because there are lots of ears listening. It isn’t exactly professional to hear a manager ask ‘his or her peeps to meet them at the Sagamo Centre’ I do smile when I hear one of the boys from out east say “Hey I needs your help boy where you at?” “No problem where you to?”

One of the best walkie talkie conversations I heard a couple of years ago went something like this... “Front Desk to Bellhop” “Go ahead Front Desk” “A Guest just came into the office to see if anybody had turned in a yellow sand pail that she left at the beach about an hour ago but we don’t have it here. The pail isn’t really the issue it is the clam that her child had found that was in the pail that we are concerned about” “I will head down to the beach right away and see if I can find it.........can you tell me what name the clam responds to?” Good one!

Without a doubt my favourite walkie talkie conversation of all time went as follows. I had my meeting with everybody on the first day of family season and about 10 minutes after they all left my office the entire property hears this....”Paul to Bellhop” (Paul was an Aussie bartender we had working for us for the season) “Go ahead Pauly” “Could you please bring a Carpet Muncher to the Club?” (Head on desk immediately) Everybody in the office instantly starts to laugh hysterically and I distinctly remember tears falling I was laughing so hard. What I didn’t know was is that’s what Aussies call ‘carpet sweepers‘. I didn’t have to deal with any irate Guests about hearing that so obviously there weren't any parents that had to explain to their kids what a ‘carpet muncher’ was. Thank God!!

I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING

I am amazed how emotional and frantic Guests can be about ‘Lost & Found’. There are some weeks when a mother calls 10 times to see if we have found her child’s navy blue baseball hat or white t-shirt with absolutely nothing written on it. I love the people who call to tell us they have left all of their clothes in the closet of their room. I mean really ...how stupid do you have to be to do that? When 99% of the world leaves a hotel room don’t they do a pretty thorough check that they have remembered everything? I fully understand the phone call I got way back in the day when the person I got into the most amount of trouble with when I partied called me after Thanksgiving one year me to say that she had left all of her clothes in the dresser at our cottage because she was so hungover the day she and her family went home. I know that is true because I watched her try and puke into the hole of a coke can the night before. In case you are wondering it isn’t really possible.

Probably the most shocking ‘lost & found’ items we get up in the office are the most personal ones. The first year I worked in Reservations I was about 15 and I came into work one afternoon at 3:00 pm to find a toiletry bag on my desk. A piece of paper with an address accompanied it. I correctly assumed that I was to wrap it up and send it out but of course I am nosy and couldn’t resist looking inside. Just as I am opening the top zipper, Lynn and Marg yell at exactly the same time ‘DOOOOOONNNNN’TTTTTT’ WOW do I wish I had listened. I opened the zipper and staring at me was a ‘Steely Dan’, a ‘Giant Dildo’ call it what you may...with the accompanying accessories. I quickly zipped the case back up, put my head on my desk and laughed hysterically for at least 10 minutes. After I pulled it together I wrapped it up, (now wearing a HAZMAT suit) shipped it out and made sure to write ‘Fragile and Bloody Hilarious’ on the outside of the box....OK I didn’t but I wanted to. We didn’t call the guest to see if it was actually their ‘stuff’, the housekeeper just brought it up. I mean how do you make that phone call ‘Excuse me Mrs. Crozier but did you leave something SUPER special at the resort when you checked out???’

Approximately 20 years later the exact same thing happened only the woman who left it called us about 10 times to see if we had found and sent her bag of toys. When we opened it not only was there a ‘Red Rocket’ in there but there were also ‘Beads’ (use your imagination, I just can’t bring myself to write it down) and a whole bag of loot. A few things come to mind. If I were ever to take such an accessory pack on a vacation (and I don’t just in case you are wondering) you can bet it would absolutely be the FIRST thing I would put back in my suitcase when I was packing up. You can also be guaranteed that if I did leave it I would NEVER call even once let alone 10 times to have it shipped back. I would have to have paper bags custom made to wear over my head for the rest of my life. I would have to go and buy new things to chip my teeth on (sorry, I am so sorry for that, but it is funny so get over it!) and I guarantee I would figure out a way to get my name off the resort’s mailing list without anybody figuring out it was me calling!

Let’s move on to a few years ago. A lot of you know that the big pink chair in my office is a great source of information for me. People sit in that chair and just start talking, telling me all the latest gossip (after they leave my Mom sits in it and makes me tell her all of it...). A bellhop was looking for his ipod and the girl he loaned it to told him to just go into her room and he would find it was just under her covers. Imagine his surprise when he was feeling around the top bunk where she slept with her 5 OTHER ROOMMATES and he found her ‘Tower of Power’. It must have been the super silent model and I don’t remember hiring Helen Keller....think about that one!!.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GROWN MAN CRY?

It is inevitable that anybody who works in a setting like Clevelands House develops unique friendships with many Guests over the years. There have been some families that have stayed with us for 50 years or more and the subsequent generations have brought their families. It is really flattering to have grandparents bring the next generations to the resort summer after summer.

Mom and Dad bought the resort in 1969 and Dad was very eager to start renovating and making changes to the rooms soon after they took over the ownership. In the early 1970’s one of the biggest renovations completed one winter was the renovating of all of the bathrooms in the North Lodge. That building has 38 rooms so this was not a small project and when the resort opened for the season Dad was pretty excited to have some of the long-time guests who had been staying in those rooms arrive and see the amazing upgrades that had been made.

The office had recently been moved from the Main Hotel Lobby to where the Gift Shop is now. Looking at that space now, it is hard to believe that building was big enough to handle all of the traffic but it served it’s purpose just fine. Back then check in day was Saturday and everybody stayed at least a week. We certainly couldn’t accommodate the number of people we can now but the hotel probably accommodated well over 200 people at that time. As I am sure you can imagine the office building on Saturdays was total chaos all day long.

One of Dad’s favourite guests back then was a woman by the name of Mrs. Corey. She had been staying at the hotel for years and quickly became one of the guests Dad looked forward to seeing every season. She was one of those people who checked in, had a great time, was a joy to have around and spread the word about how great the place was when she got home. Dad always went out of his way to speak to her every chance he got when she was at the hotel. He was really looking forward to having her arrive the season after he did all of the renovations in the North Lodge because he knew she would be so excited and pleased to see her new bathroom. She checked in mid-July and Dad made a point of getting her organized at the front desk himself and gave her the keys to the room she had been staying in for years and was looking forward to seeing her later to get her feedback about the upgrades.

About 10 minutes after she checked in she was back in the very crowded office lobby and caught Dad’s eye and indicated that she wanted to speak to him. He knew she was just coming up to say how much she loved all of the renovations and he actually wanted her to tell him that in front of everybody in the lobby because he was so proud of the changes, as a result he didn’t pull her into his office. As Dad was standing across the counter from her with a smile from ear to ear she said in a great loud voice. ‘I JUST CHECKED INTO MY ROOM, AND THERE ARE PUBIC HAIRS ON MY NEW BATHROOM FLOOR!!!!’....

Shoot me now.