I was thinking about what to write about today. As I was looking out the window thinking (I wish is was about 80 degrees and sunny). Well....we have the sunny part down to a science but the air temps just don't cut it on the thermometer. The sun is shining and the air temp is hovering around 25 degrees. This got me thinking about the summer days and some of the funny things we have had happen in this business. I know that when a few of you read these things you will think "What is so funny about that?" And that is ok! But to people who have lived here our entire lives, it is really funny because these stories make us look at things with an entirely different viewpoint.
I promise not to use names (because honesty I don't remember them).
Back in the mid-1980's when Alan Holden Vacations was known as Alan Holden Realty, we had a lady come into our office that was highly upset about something. She came in and was telling us about how her
North Carolina vacation was ruined and her views of the ocean were ruined etc. She never came out and said "My beach trip is ruined because....." She just went on and one about how she has waited her entire life to come to the beach and now it is ruined. To make a long story very short, she finally said these exact words,"My first beach experience is ruined because those shrimp boats offshore are ruining my view!" We tried will all our power to explain to her that the shrimp boats are "the view". She was not satisfied and wanted us to call them shrimpers and ask them to move out of the way." How do you explain that is does not work that way.....???
Another funny story is about mosquitoes. Everyone knows that in the dead of summer mosquitoes are sometimes annoying right before dark. Especially if there has been a lot of rain two or three weeks before. If there is not a lot of wind at night, we humans are prime hunting material for mosquitoes. This story happened many years ago also. We had a phone call from a lady who had checked in several days earlier and was upset. We asked her what was wrong and she complained to us that the mosquitoes were eating her up while she sat on the porch watching the sunsets in the evenings. She asked us if we could do something about them? If we could not, she wanted all of her rental money back. We explained to the customer that we can't control things such as mosquitoes. She told us to call someone to take care of the problem.
We had an instance of a renter who called before they came to the beach. He wanted to make sure that the house they had rented earlier in the year had "only low tide if front of it". His children needed a place to play in front of the house. But.....again we explained to him that the
tides are a result of the gravitational attraction between the earth, the sun, and the moon. We at AHV do not control the ocean tides. We jokingly told him that he would need to talk to the man upstairs about that (we were referring to God). But the renter said, "Well....put him on the phone"(He was referring to Mr. Holden). Finally we explained how the tides work, and he understood then he laughed about about it.
One last quick story, is the customer who called and told us she was upset with her house location. She explained to us that her grandchildren went and bought boogie boards to ride the waves. However, when they got to the beach, the waves in front of their home were really small and unrideable. But, she did tell us that she could see children riding waves just down the beach. She asked if we could move the family to a different house that had waves in front of it. Again, we can not control the waves nor Mother Nature.
I have been surfing for about 25 years. If I could control the waves, I would never be at work. :-)
These few stories are not to make fun of anyone. They just bring smiles to my face when I think about all of the funny ones over the years. It seems working in this business, the days are never the same.....or even close.
I am sure that if us locals went back to your home state, we would ask questions as to why things are the way they are there. Why do your schools not close when it snows a lot?
(Now to make fun of ourselves here in our area...to make things even). Yes! It is true about when it snows here...or should I say "when it thinks about snowing here". In our area of the state, if the weather hints at a possible storm with freezing rain or sleet, the few salt trucks get on standby. To my knowledge, our county does not even have salt trucks. Anyway, if it flurries for a few hours in the early mornings, the school system either has a 2 hour delay or they shut the schools down all together. But if you look out the window that morning, it looks like just another day. Dore (my wife), who grew up is Utah laughs at the school system here. She told me that for schools to be canceled out there, it had to snow close to three or four feet in a day. Here......it seems like the weatherman says," We have a very good chance of freezing rain and sleet late tonight and into the early morning hours." Then the next thing we hear on the news is, "There will be a two hour delay for all area schools". The reason being..............us southerners CAN'T drive in the snow!" But....just to prove to everyone that the beach does get snow, just click on picture above and see for yourselves.
Labels: Funny Stories, Holden Beach, snow at the beach, Tide changes
