Sunday, June 7, 2015

 

Hi everyone,

          Another week has passed and if you ask me, it has passed much too quickly.

          Life is so very busy right now with moving out of our apartment and taking care of Luby's Plaza, our business, and it hasn't left me much time to pursue any of my hobbies. I haven't been out walking the dogs beyond what is necessary and that means I haven't been out to take any pictures either. I know that the wild garlic is up and if I am going to gather any, I'll need to do that pretty soon. I know the simple, understated daisy's are in bloom right now too, and I love those. Especially when I catch one of the little spiders that are known to inhabit them. And I haven't been able to spend much time writing either.

          It was my plan to finish our moving out yesterday and write today. The moving out did not get completed but despite that, I decided to go ahead and write today anyway (I should be finishing up the moving).

          First, let me show you my current desktop photo and then I'll tell you what kept me from finishing our move-out, okay?

          My current desktop photo is a road picture from my recent RV Adventure. I can't tell you anything about it other than the date I took it.

 

          This weekend was the third annual Lake Race. A two day race here on the Lake of the Ozarks. Power boats from all over the country come to compete and speeds can exceed 115 miles per hour with prizes totaling $75,000. They actually close Bagnell Dam to traffic so spectators can watch the race from there. But let me tell you something. It was hot out there. Well into the 90's and I think the best place to watch the race from is your couch. It's televised.

          One of the coolest things about the whole race is watching them lift the big power boats into and out of the water.

 

          Okay. So the Lake Race has been going on and Mike, along with Gary, his helper, are building a garage for our RV and snow plow truck.

          Bear with me here.

          Tucker's Shucker's and Salsa, two brand new, very expensive business have opened at the end of our block. These two places have something like five public parking spaces in front of them. That's it. You can call them restaurants if you want to but I consider them bars that serve food. Their patrons may eat there but I bet you ten-to-one that most of them are there for the alcohol and live entertainment.  Both bars are two levels with seating capacities well over the one hundred mark. Where did they think their patrons were going to park?

          Our little city has no ordinance about providing parking for your patrons in the C1 district. So they were allowed to build, advertise, bring tons of people down to the Strip and not provide them with any place to park. That may sound like a good thing but they are not the only business's here on the Strip. Other business owners would like to do business too and have a little parking for their patrons.

          Mike and I have 14 tenants, a stage, and a parking lot with 70 spaces, all on two and a half acres right in the middle of town.

          Guess where everyone wants to park?

          "What's wrong with that?" you ask.

          Well, for starters, and like I said, these two new places are bars. People come and stay for hours and hours and sometimes are too intoxicated to drive. So their cars are left overnight. So when our parking lot is full of Tucker's and Salsa customers, where will the customers of our tenants park?

          Yeah, it's a problem.

          We have posted a sign declaring this as a private parking lot for the customers of the business here but people ignore the sign. When Mike tells them it's private parking they say they didn't see the sign. So a new improved and much larger sign was ordered and mounted on a sawhorse that sits right smack in the middle of the entry lane to Luby's Plaza.

          They have to drive around it.

          It's only been run over once.

          Believe it or not, people still ignore the sign. I can't say as I blame them- there isn't any street parking- however, it is clearly posted along with a sign telling them that violators will be towed.

          All of this means that on weekends or during special events, we have to man the entrance and ask every single car where they are going.

          It is time consuming and people can be mean! And the people who are the meanest are the ones who were trying to do something wrong. The people who are regular patrons of our tenants are glad to know that even during the busiest of times, they will find a parking spot here at Luby's and they are grateful.

          Yesterday, instead of finishing up our moving out, I did Parking Lot Duty so Mike and Gary could work on the garage.

          I thought I was doing a good job of staying out of the sun, until I was washing up to go to bed. My face and my neck are bright red.

          Sigh.

          I didn't have a lot of trouble with people. I smiled at each and every one and asked, "Where y'all goin'?" as politely as I could.

          Once people realized they could name one of our stores and they were allowed to park, it seemed like word spread like wild fire. Then we would see them walk into one of our stores and maybe buy something but most often not, and the next thing you know, they were walking down the street!

          I'll fix that! I thought to myself. "We have a one hour parking time limit today," I told them.

          The people who were truly patrons didn't have a problem with that. "Even if you're drinking?" one gal asked me.

          "Heck no!" I told her. "As long as you are in Wise Guys (or patronizing any of our stores) you can stay as long as you like."

          When it was someone who fully intended to park and walk out they just circled the lot and drove back out. They never even parked.

          One guy was totally up front with me. "So if I buy an ice cream cone I can park here for an hour?" he asked.

          "Yup!" I said.

          "What if I come back in an hour and buy another ice cream cone? Can I stay another hour?"

          I had to smile as I thought about it. I didn't know how to answer that so I decided to forestall the decision. "I don't know. Come back in an hour and we'll talk about it."

          The guy smiled, stuck out his hand and said, "My name's Mike."

          I shook his hand, "I'm Peg."

          "Nice to meet you," he said.

          "Nice to meet you too. Now go get that ice cream, don't get me in trouble with my boss."

          He didn't let me down. He bought two cones, one for himself and one for his little boy and as they walked out to the street, I called after him, "See you in an hour."

          He gave me a big grin and the thumbs up sign.

          They were gone a little longer than an hour, but never asked for more time. I'm guessing the sun beating down on them wore them out and they had had enough anyway and they left.

          All in all my day was going really well and when the regulars asked why the restrictions, I told them ending with, "...and I want you to have a parking space when you come down here to eat at Wok & Roll," or wherever they said they were going.

          Traffic into the plaza had slowed and I was a little bored. I see this guy come walking down the sidewalk and I decide to talk to him.

 

          "Hey, hey! What are you up to today?" I greeted him.

          "I'm looking for my friends but they're not answering their phone. But I wasn't answering mine earlier either because my battery's dead."

          "Retribution?" I asked.

          "Yeah," he says and shakes his head.

          Thinking of my recent snafu, I decided to do some good natured ribbing. "Is that poor planning on your part?"

          "Huh?"

          "You knew you were coming here today, why didn't you charge your phone? Poor planning on your part or what?"

          He smiled sheepishly, "I brought my charger with me." He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the charger. "I had my phone on the charger earlier but I guess something's wrong with it because it's not working."

          "I'm just teasing you because you know what? I just did the very same thing!" It wasn't with my phone though, it was with my camera on the RV Adventure. I hadn't been paying any attention to my battery when an Amish man sitting behind a team of horses in a freshly plowed field passes by my window and I raise my camera to capture it and--

          "Doggone it!"

          "Did you get it?" Lori asked.

          "No! My battery's dead!" I was crestfallen. I scrambled out of my seat to get the battery on the charger and plugged in and when I got back to the Navigators Seat I said, "Poor planning on my part, huh?"

          "That would have been a good shot too," Lori said feeling my misery.

          I never thought about grabbing Andrew's camera and photographing it with that until it was way too late. Heck, it was right there in the pocket in front of me too!

          Once I had a chance to review my photos I saw that I did actually get two shots of it.

 

 

          I had a very nice conversation with this guy who's name is Key. "How did you happen to be named Key?" I asked.

          "Interesting story," he tells me. "My name was supposed to be Keith but when my mom got the birth certificate back it was Key." He went on to elaborate and told me that his mom said he was so much trouble to carry and deliver that she didn't want no more trouble. He mimicked the way his mom must have said it to him because he shook his finger at an imaginary little boy standing in front of him and said, "'...so now you're Key.'" 

          It was as we were standing there conversing, and me running out every so often to ask new arrivals, "Where y'all goin' today?" when we heard a crunch-scrape-crunch. We looked and saw a car squeezing into a space between a car and a pole that wasn't even a parking space.

          "Well at least he didn't hit the other car," I said. The man got out and looked at his car and just walked off, leaving his car like this most of the day.

 

         

          My worst experience came almost at the end of my shift. Two guys came in with an Illinois plate and I went through my whole spiel ending with the one hour parking time limit.

          "Why are you talking to us like we're three years old?" the passenger asked but the driver never waited for an answer. He pulled away from me and into a parking spot.

          "I wasn't trying to treat you like three-year-olds," I said as they approached where I stood at my station which was between them and their intended destination. "I was trying to be nice to you."

          "Yeah? Well it isn't very nice to put a time restriction on someone who wants to spend money in one of your stores," he said rather snootily, never slowing his pace.

          I followed a little ways. "Let me tell you what's going on," I offered.

          "NO. I don't have to listen to you and I don't want to hear anything you have to say."

          I wanted to say all kinds of mean things to him ending with something like, "And you don't have to be such a dick about it," but I only said, "Fine!" and turned my back to them.

          And this has made me appreciate the nice people all the more. "Thank you for being so nice to me," was added into my spiel or, "Thanks for understanding." And I most definitely did apologize when I had to ask them to park someplace else.

          Now, I want you to understand something. Parking, or not parking, is like almost everything else in life. It's not all cut and dry; not all black and white. I had a few people who told me they wanted to patronize another business that, even though it wasn't one of our business's, it was nearby and they couldn't find anyplace else to park. I let them park in our lot, with the time limit of course, and sometimes with the stipulation that they come back sometime and go to one of our business's. They readily agreed and they were grateful. A group of four gals who were going up to the swimsuit shop went out to our Mexican Restaurant when they came back and drank margaritas for an hour. They were really happy when they left.

          The people who were nice to us stood a better chance of being allowed to park than those who were mean. Mike allowed one lady to park simply because she was so nice to him and she gave him a hug. (And she knew him in a round-about sort of way.)

          It's true. You do catch more flies with honey.

 

          Let's end this with another road picture from my RV Adventure.

 

          Lots and lots of love,

          Peg and Mike