The lost weekend, parts I and II
Jan. 12th, 2003 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupFirst, let me say: Praise Jeebus that the football season is over for me. I was more worried that the Steelers would actually win and that I would have to watch, and pointlessly care about, another game next week that they would have no business winning and yet would come close to winning, then blowing in some uninvented horrorshow at the last minute, like always. I can no more avoid this spectacle than a crack fiend can steer clear of one more fix. I need for this to end.
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Toward the end of a drive around the ponds and swamps of southern Rhode Island, we go searching for Burlingame State Park. A big sign points us into the park; we get to the ranger house and go through an open gate. Not another soul around. We drive around various empty campsites before finding a place to park overlooking the beach and the lovely Ninigret Pond. Mrs. S. takes out the baby to nurse.
I start wandering around. About two minutes later, a white minivan pulls up. I hear its window being rolled down and expect it to be someone looking for directions.
Instead it is some guy driving with some woman of equal age in the passenger seat. "You're not supposed to be here. You'll have to leave," he says. In a daze, I look at him more closely. He cannot be more than 20 years old, and he's not wearing any kind of official uniform or ID. He seems to be wearing a t-shirt. The minivan has no markings on it and its rear window seems to be a plastic sheet.
"But the gate was open," I say. "There wasn't a sign or anything, and the front sign said this was the park."
"That wasn't supposed to be open," he says. "You'll have to leave. I'll follow you out."
I wander back to the car and tell the Mrs. I'm kind of in the mood for Trouble. Who the fuck is this guy? But the Mrs. is in no mood for the Trouble. We just pull out and leave.
By the time we get near the gate the guy is down there, flashing his headlights at me. I pull up to him. "Did you take the lock?" he asks me. "What? The gate was open," I say. "I guess the other guy who was in here took it," he says. "I'll let you out." He drives down to the gate and makes a big show of swinging it open, so we see there's no lock.
It takes me a good few minutes to realize what almost certainly happened: this was some kind of Junior Ranger in there with his chippie. "I have the key to the campground," he told her. So they were in there and someone else came in and stole the open lock that he had left on the gate. And we're the ones who felt as though we were in trouble. (Though in retrospect one can see that someone should have locked that gate; it was technically to the campground, which is closed off-season. Which didn't leave much else to the park, but there was no way to know that going in.)
I'm just kicking myself for not asking him who the fuck he was and what he was doing there. Some junior pig-man in training without a badge or a car or anything, farting around in the park while keeping everyone else out.
One of the good qualities of my father-in-law, which I am slowly learning to appreciate, is that you don't have to take on faith that the people who hassle you have some kind of natural right to make you cower, even if you are doing something "against the rules." It takes a while to learn that just because some idiot has a key to a gate, he doesn't have the right to ruin your day. Then again, my father-in-law has a good six inches and 75 pounds on me, so perhaps this isn't the best philosophy in every situation.
-------------------
Toward the end of a drive around the ponds and swamps of southern Rhode Island, we go searching for Burlingame State Park. A big sign points us into the park; we get to the ranger house and go through an open gate. Not another soul around. We drive around various empty campsites before finding a place to park overlooking the beach and the lovely Ninigret Pond. Mrs. S. takes out the baby to nurse.
I start wandering around. About two minutes later, a white minivan pulls up. I hear its window being rolled down and expect it to be someone looking for directions.
Instead it is some guy driving with some woman of equal age in the passenger seat. "You're not supposed to be here. You'll have to leave," he says. In a daze, I look at him more closely. He cannot be more than 20 years old, and he's not wearing any kind of official uniform or ID. He seems to be wearing a t-shirt. The minivan has no markings on it and its rear window seems to be a plastic sheet.
"But the gate was open," I say. "There wasn't a sign or anything, and the front sign said this was the park."
"That wasn't supposed to be open," he says. "You'll have to leave. I'll follow you out."
I wander back to the car and tell the Mrs. I'm kind of in the mood for Trouble. Who the fuck is this guy? But the Mrs. is in no mood for the Trouble. We just pull out and leave.
By the time we get near the gate the guy is down there, flashing his headlights at me. I pull up to him. "Did you take the lock?" he asks me. "What? The gate was open," I say. "I guess the other guy who was in here took it," he says. "I'll let you out." He drives down to the gate and makes a big show of swinging it open, so we see there's no lock.
It takes me a good few minutes to realize what almost certainly happened: this was some kind of Junior Ranger in there with his chippie. "I have the key to the campground," he told her. So they were in there and someone else came in and stole the open lock that he had left on the gate. And we're the ones who felt as though we were in trouble. (Though in retrospect one can see that someone should have locked that gate; it was technically to the campground, which is closed off-season. Which didn't leave much else to the park, but there was no way to know that going in.)
I'm just kicking myself for not asking him who the fuck he was and what he was doing there. Some junior pig-man in training without a badge or a car or anything, farting around in the park while keeping everyone else out.
One of the good qualities of my father-in-law, which I am slowly learning to appreciate, is that you don't have to take on faith that the people who hassle you have some kind of natural right to make you cower, even if you are doing something "against the rules." It takes a while to learn that just because some idiot has a key to a gate, he doesn't have the right to ruin your day. Then again, my father-in-law has a good six inches and 75 pounds on me, so perhaps this isn't the best philosophy in every situation.
