Say hello to Irene.
She must have seen us pull in and immediately jumped from her trailer to watch Troy maneuver into our spot. She was waving her arms and hollerin' at him, giving advice and directing poor Troy as to how he ought to pull the trailer into our spot. This is like telling Martha Stewart how to fold towels. Troy's a good guy; he thanked her for all her help, and parked just fine.
Later that evening, I was organizing inside the trailer (my favorite thing!) and handed Troy a bunch of plastic bags to place between some of his new cast iron cookware that we were storing in totes underneath the trailer. I heard a screen door slam.
"Troy! Troy!" Irene was running towards us, arms waving again.
"Is that bread you just put into that container?"
Good golly, was she watching us with binoculars?
"No, it's just plastic bags."
"Well, okay. I just had to make sure. You can't be storing food outside - we've had a badger and skunks. Big problem with the skunks."
After Irene was satisfied that the skunks would have have no reason to congregate nearby, she headed back to her own place. It was a giant motor home that she drove all by herself, seeing as her husband had died more than a decade ago, and as she put it, "he died, I didn't".
She also told us the tale of rolling her previous trailer and how Firestone Tires had bought her current motor home for her. She's had several back surgeries. She didn't show us the scars, though I'm sure she would of if I had asked.
Irene was missing an inch off of her middle finger on her right hand. She was out mowing her lawn a few years back and felt something hit her from behind. She fell into her mower, and since she had tied it so it wouldn't turn off, (I don't know why, she blamed the back surgeries) it chopped her finger off. She drove herself to the emergency room.
The doctors found a shoe print on the back of her shirt. Apparently, some punk kid was wanting to join a gang and he had to hurt someone to prove himself. The first little old lady that he pushed was fine, but Irene was his ticket into the gang of his choice, after he served his jail time, of course.
Irene got all up in our business one more time before we left. Seems there was a fire restriction in the city that included lighting charcoal to cook on the dutch ovens. We weren't aware of the restriction, and had been lighting our charcoal willy-nilly the day before. It also rained pretty much the entire time we were there. But Irene takes her job as campground watcher pretty seriously, and when she saw the charcoal come out, she darn near started yelling at us.
Knowing that she was watching us and being fairly well certain that she wouldn't hesitate to call the fire department, we made alternate cooking plans.
Happy trails, Irene.
5 comments:
Don't ya always wonder if you will be the same way when you are older? I used to think that older people moved too slow and worried too much. But now, I'm always moving too slow and worrying too much!
I want to be the "Gym Police". I would say, "Don't forget to wipe that machine down!" or "Don't let your five year old on the treadmill!" ....I guess those things are important to me...now that I'm older....
Mixed feelings about your post. First, I would be totally irritated that someone would be paying attention to what i was doing, it would stress me big time. Yet, Mrs. kravitz's story is interesting and sad. holy crap, gang initiation! That's horrible! I'm impressed by her driving the motorhome by herself etc. crazy. I am impressed by you and Troy's patience!
I think that being like that is a perk of getting older! At some point you just stop caring. And the gym issue - I totally agree!
And Lisa, we had those same mixed feelings. The driving directions were funny, the watching our every move was creepy, and the food thing made us mad. But...she had this "oh well, what're ya gonna do" attitude about her husband dying, losing her finger, and driving that big rig that made her a teeny bit endearing to me.
And you know her real name isn't Mrs. Kravitz. Weak reference to Bewitched.
Hey, Wendy- Michael read several of your posts, starting with this one. He thought they were cool.
I think I heard Irene, I mean Mrs.
Kravitz yelling at me when I turned on my oven. She definitely thought it was a fire hazard.
This is to funny. I have to ask if while Troy was dealing with the woman. Did he by chance think to himself. She is just like GRANDMA!!!
Ok maybe I am being bad. Sounds like she was cute up till the cooking thing. I would have been personally annoyed also. Guess Troy will have to come out to the pool and show me what he has been up to with those dutch ovens =)
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