Schitter’$ Full

Life can be funny. No, seriously! Sometimes life imitates film. And as long as everyone can laugh about it afterwards, it’s hilarious. Like the other day, a camper was filling up his tank with water. Or the bank robber who spent the night. How about the night 50 cars showed up! Then there was the gator who wanted to play football. There were a lot of other incidents but I will save that for the book edition.

Monument Lake is a small campground with 10 tent sites and 26 RV sites. By park rule, no more than 2 tents and one vehicle per site. You can imagine our surprise then when half of Miami showed up! On the Monday after Christmas 53 cars showed up on sites 4, 5, & 6 ! To make matters worse there were no Rangers on duty! Collier County Sheriff did show up but were useless. Their comment in front of everyone, “Park rules, not our issue.” And they left. Fortunately, they were not that rowdy. The next morning, half of Miami left and things went back to normal.

Last year an apparent destitute man came in with an old grocery cart with clothes. Feeling sorry for the guy, we gave him a tent and some fishing supplies and set him up for the night on an empty site. The next day he skidaaddled out of here on his way to Naples. Later that afternoon a Ranger came in and informed us the guy had robbed a bank in Homestead several days ago! They are still looking for the $50,000!

*Florida Gators have the football! 1st and 10 at mid lake!*

On Monday, kids were playing pass with a football near the lake. An errant pass went awry and into the lake. (Tom Brady he is not!). The Florida Gator saw the opportunity and snatched the ball. He floated around with that ball in his mouth for most of the afternoon. Seeing nobody was going to play ball with him he coughed up the pigskin at night. The father retrieved the ball the next morning with only teeth-marks and tears in the covering. The ball still had air!

But the funniest thing happened last Friday. An elderly couple came in with their 30’ Airstream camper (Airstreams are the Rolls Royce of campers). After checking in, he drove up to our fresh water filling hose and proceeded to fill his tank. Things were going well until the wife flew out of the camper yelling, “STOP THE WATER! THE TOILET IS OVERFLOWING!” Turns out he hooked the hose up to the black tank flush. As the gentleman walked past my wife he was heard muttering with a grin, “Oops, I really messed up this time.”

Yes, often I feel we could write the script for our own sitcom that would rival Schitt$ Creek, Stripes (Bill Murray), RV (Robin Williams), or Chevy Chase’s Vacation. Never a dull moment at Monument Lake.

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