Monthly Archives: March 2015

Mar3

The Evils of Girl Scout Cookies

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Thin Mint, Homemade, Grasshopper, Food, Dessert, MintI was selling jewelry and shiny rocks in front of a local, independent bookstore. My table was up against an adobe wall. On the other side of the wall, two teenage Girl Scouts & their mom chaperone were selling Girl Scout cookies.

A man walked up to my table, and I said hello to him.

“Do you know what that woman is doing?” he asked me in an angry German (or maybe Austrian) accent while indicating the chaperone mom.

“What?” I asked, wanting the scoop.

“She is making children sell cookies that are full of sugar!” He went on to tell me that what she was doing was wrong, that sugar is not good for everybody. (I think he meant “anybody.”) He said she was wrong to make the children sell the unhealthy cookies and that he’d told her so!

I wanted to ask him if he’d never heard of the tradition of selling Girl Scout cookies as a fundraiser, but I’ve learned not to get into discussions with fanatics.

Then he complained that the chaperone mom was blocking the sidewalk so folks had to pass right by the table with the cookies.

I told him I thought the restaurant they were set up in front of had given them permission to be where they were, and he said, “Money talks!”

Did he think the Girl Scouts were giving the restaurant a kickback on their shameful sugar earnings?

At that point, I knew there’d be no reasonable discussion with the man (and probably no bracelet sale either), so I busied myself tidying up my table and made noncommittal “I heard you” noises in response to everything he said until he went away.

https://static.pexels.com/photos/264537/pexels-photo-264537.jpegPerhaps he should write to the Girl Scout national office and propose Girl Scout carrots, Girl Scout cauliflower, Girl Scout cabbage and Girl Scout cantaloupes. Would you patronize a Girl Scout produce stand?

Images courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/thin-mint-homemade-grasshopper-food-182858/ and https://www.pexels.com/photo/abundance-agriculture-bananas-batch-264537/.

 

Mar2

The Big Tent

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The Big Tent is what folks call it, but the actual name of the event is The Quartzsite Sports, Vacation & RV Show. It’s been held every year since 1984, although the location within the town has changed several times. People travel to Quartzsite in their RVs (motorhomes, vans, campers, fifth wheels, etc.) from all over the country to enjoy the warm Arizona weather and see what’s new in the Big Tent.

The Quartzsite Sports, Vacation & RV Show has grown from 60 exhibitors and a small tent to this year’s 69,000 square foot fully carpeted indoor exhibit area at 700 South Central Blvd.

This year the Big Tent was open January 17th through 25th. I visited it on the Saturday opening day and on Tuesday the 20th.

I went to the Big Tent the first time because I was trying to get a job as a camp host. I’d been told that the best camp host company to work for would have a booth at the Big Tent. I was told I should go there to meet the boss in charge of staffing, that I’d be interviewed and probably hired on the spot.

It didn’t happen quite that way.

The big boss was there, but when I walked up, he was busy and barely spoke to me. He wasn’t unfriendly, just busy. I talked to another man who works for the company who told me to go to their website, see what jobs were available, fill out an online application, and wait for a phone interview. Why had I come to the Big Tent on opening day?

I’d arrived at the tent at about ten minutes early, but nobody was getting in early that morning. The line started moving at exactly nine o’clock.

By the time I got inside, the place was already packed.

I wasn’t surprised to see RV park booths, RV insurance booths, booths staffed with folks trying to convince people to drive their RVs north to Canada and south to Mexico. I wasn’t surprised to see an Arizona State Parks booth, a KOA campground booth, and a Good Sam’s Club booth.

Several casinos had booths, complete with wheels to spin. Spin the wheel, win a prize, but not until one coughed up one’s name, mailing address, email address, and phone number. I tried to win several times (and won nothing more memorable than multiple decks of cards), so I’m sure my mailbox will shortly be full of casino propaganda.

Several booths were dedicated to recruiting work campers. One of those booths belonged to Workamper News, the website to check out (I was told at the RTR) to get hooked up with work camping opportunities. Amazon.com was present, recruiting for its CamperForce. The sugar beet harvest people were there too, and I had a nice talk with a nice midwestern man, but quickly realized that sugar beet harvest work is too strenuous for me. Several companies looking to hire camp hosts were also in the Big Tent.

I was surprised to see multiple booths selling pillows. I understand that RVers use pillows. But why would someone buy pillows at at sports, vacation, and RV show? Wal-Mart sells pillows. Kmart sells pillows. Sears and JCPenney and the freakin’ Family Dollar probably sell pillows. Pillows can be ordered from Amazon.com. Why were these RV show pillows so special? I don’t know because I did not stop at any of the many pillow booths and discuss the desirability of their pillows.

On a related note, the funniest thing I saw in a booth was a man lying in a bed on a platform a couple of feet off the floor. He was selling some special RV bedding, and he was demonstrating this bedding by lying in a bed. The big come-on with this bedding is that one wouldn’t have to make the bed if one had this bedding. Basically, the bedding was a double sleeping bag placed on top of a mattress. There was no tucking of sheets and blankets because this item was a blanket pouch. Is making an RV bed so difficult that people would rather sleep in a double sleeping bag? In any case, whenever I saw this grown man lying down in bed while trying to convince people to buy his wares, it cracked me up.

I was also surprised to see people in so many booths trying to sell kitchen gadgets. I do understand that RVs have kitchens, which might lead RVers to buy kitchen gadgets, but it seems like those items too are available in just about any regular store. Do people get caught up in the frenzy of shopping at the Big Tent, only to wake up to reality later and find their yellow freebie KOA tote bag full of silicone bowl covers and long skinny plastic chip clips?

The least explicable booths were those selling makeup, hand creme, and jewelry (especially an “ion” bracelet some lady tried to slip on my wrist). I didn’t stop at any of those booths, but from my cruise past, I didn’t see anything that looked unique or revolutionary.

My favorite booth was the one run by Minute Rice. There was a wheel to spin and prizes to win. When I spun the wheel, it stopped on “emery board.” Boring! However, the nice ladies were also giving out two-packs of the precooked, microwaveable rice. There was even a choice: white, brown, or jasmine. And they didn’t want my email address!

I know I mentioned it was crowded in that tent, but let me just say again, the place was packed. At one point, the crowd in the aisle was at a complete standstill. There was a tall young man next to me, and I asked him what he saw up ahead. He said it was just a bunch of people standing still. As soon as I made it out of that quagmire (without ever seeing a reason for movement to have ceased), I ducked out of the next exit door into the sunshine. There were more booths on the outside around the perimeter of the Big Tent, but nothing held my attention long enough for me to stop.

When I went back on Tuesday (because I was in the area to purchase items from several of the booths in the Tyson Wells shopping area), the Big Tent was mostly the same. The Minute Rice ladies were gone (they must have run out of rice), but I made up for it by playing a couple of fun and silly games at the Progressive booth, where the workers were a bunch of young gals dressed like Flo! There (thankfully) weren’t as many people in the Big Tent, so we all had a little more elbow room.

The Big Tent (like Mardi Gras) is definitely something to see once, if one is in the right place at the right time. I’m not sure I would go there again. If I did go there again, I probably would not do so on opening day. And hopefully I’d own a working camera so I could get a photo of that man in the bed.

In 2016, I got a photo of the man in bed! Go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/03/02/the-big-tent-2016/ to see it.

 
Mar1

In Praise of Roadside Assistance

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It had been a good day. There was no line at the post office. I paid for my lunch with a gift card I got for my birthday and used a coupon for a free birthday sundae. Then I locked my keys in the van,

I was at the Goodwill Clearance Center, my favorite place to shop.

I must have been distracted. I took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the dashboard. I got a text message, read it, replied. I put my ring in the glove box so I wouldn’t lose it. Then I jumped out of the van, locked the door, slammed it shut. I took two steps before I realized I wasn’t hearing the rattle of my key chain. Oh no!

I wheeled around, and there they were on the dash. Oh no! What to do?

I walked around the van and tried all the doors. Locked. I tried to push down both front windows. No luck. I checked  the other windows: all locked up.

One of the long, narrow side windows doesn’t have glass. The glass was busted out not long before I bought the van. That window is closed with plastic and cardboard. Could I pop out the plastic and cardboard and climb through the window? No. The last time I locked my keys in the van (in December) I pulled the screen off that window and popped out the plastic and determined there was no way I was going through.

(That time I had left the keys in the back of the van. I was able to reach in through the window and use my umbrella to knock the keys close enough to grab. I didn’t actually have to climb through the window. This time I’d have to go all the way through the window to get the keys from the front of the van. I imagined myself getting stuck trying to pass through that window, my legs dangling outside, stuck like a baby with shoulder dystocia.)

I didn’t have my phone with me. I’d left my phone in the van. I had to find a phone.

Thankfully, I did have my insurance card in my little zippered pouch. On the insurance card is the phone number for roadside assistance. I wasn’t sure if roadside assistance covered rescuing my keys from being locked in my van, but it seemed like my best bet.

I still had to find a phone. I went into the Goodwill Clearance Center. I asked the woman at the first register if I could use the phone, told her I’d locked my keys in my van. She couldn’t let me use the phone without the manager’s approval. Thankfully, the manager approved.

In less than half an hour, Mr. Hernandez had arrived and used his special tool ( a slim jim, I presume) to unlock my door. I grabbed my keys, and I was back to having a good day.

I think I pay $14 a year for roadside assistance. It’s tacked on to the insurance for my van. I use it about once a year, but there’s no limit to how often I can use it. It covers towing, changing flats, jumping dead batteries, and rescuing keys locked in the van. (I’ve used my roadside assistance to deal with all of those problems.) I recommend roadside assistance to everyone, especially van dwellers.