The only major downside was the schedule. Since the business is seasonal, it burns the candle at both ends (prep for the first tours begins at 6 a.m, clean-up after parties can go until 1- or 2 a.m.) and we were understaffed that year. The hours got to be ridiculous --- 75-85 hours/week was the norm for much of the summer.
This wasn't that bad until the tail end of the season. My last day was only three or four days before I was reporting to school for Frosh-O. The problem was, most of the other college-aged kids working there had set their quit dates a couple of weeks earlier, since they wanted to enjoy the end of summer with their high school buddies. As a result, for the entire first half of August, I literally did nothing more than work, sleep and commute.
To say this took a toll on my morale would be fair. On my 5th or 6th to last day, we were hosting a booze cruise for a bunch of 30-somethings who were very, very determined to get hammered. On top of that, Lake Michigan was rather choppy this evening, offering an increased likelihood of drunken/seasick-vomiting.
As fate would have it, partway through the cruise one of the caterers came up to me and said there was a problem with the women's restroom. I'd been at work since about 7 a.m. and so with a minimum of enthusiasm, I cleared the passengers out of the ladies room (we mariners call it a "head") to investigate.
In the ladies "head," there are two stalls. In each stall, some overzealous partygoer had thrown up; prodigiously. A vainglorious effort to conceal the party foul had been made --- copious amounts of toilet paper crammed in the toilet bowls, resulting in clogs that easily overwhelmed the vessel's pedestrian plumbing system. That wasn't all, though --- since it hadn't dawned upon anyone to report the problem, the "ladies" on the boat had continued to use the toilets (both #'s 1 and 2), resulting in a toxic overflow of vomit, urine and poo that was utterly overwhelming. I've never seen Hell, but this is what I imagine the Soup Du Jour is like every day of the week.
At the time, I was secretly pleased. This probably meant that we would need to go back to dock and call a plumber. I was going home early!
I radioed up to Captain Vern that we had a Code Brown in the women's head. We went back to dock and disembarked the passengers.
After the lower deck was clear, Captain Vern and I went down to survey the damage.
ME
"Wow, that is some pretty nasty shit. Who do we call about something like this?"
CAPT. VERN
"Hey, when are you --- when are you leaving for college?"
ME (slightly confused)
"A few days or so --- why? What's up?"
CAPT. VERN
"When you're in college, and you're studying physics, or philosophy, or whatever the hell it is you're gonna study, and your friends all say 'Screw studying, let's go out to the bar!' I want you to look back and remember this moment."
ME
"What? Remember what?"
At that point, Capt. Vern threw on the ground in front of me two latex gloves and a garbage bag. I graduated four years later.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment