Impatience Will Get You Nowhere Painfully Fast

Alberta, Camp, Canada, Current Events, Editors' Choice, Jerk, Strangers | Friendly | December 16, 2020

My partner and I decide to go camping this summer; provincial campgrounds are only 50% open right now, and it will be a cheap, safe vacation. We get to our site and there’s a large truck blocking it; the owner is staying at the neighbouring site. He moves it willingly but doesn’t stay at a safe distance before he gets in.

There’s just our small tent and small car on our site, while their site has a large trailer, a tent, and two large trucks. The morning of our checkout arrives, and as we’re leisurely packing everything up, a woman comes from the other site…

Woman: “We have this site booked for tonight and checkout is 11:00. When are you going to be done?”

Me: “Checkout is 2:00. We’ll be out well before then.”

She huffed and went back to her site, watching us. We’d already planned to spend some time collecting spruce tips before we left, but we may have taken a bit more time.

This story is part of our Best Of December 2020 roundup!