Parenting The Parents

(I am a seventeen-year-old girl working at a Boy Scout camp. It is close to the end of the summer and I’ve gotten very used to encounters like these. The camp has motorized canoes on the river because the boys are generally too weak to row upstream. Some dads tend to abuse the canoes. This particular dad is very obnoxious.)

Dad: *jumps into canoe*

Me: “Uh, sir, we actually need to go over safety rules before you guys can start with the canoes, okay?”

Dad: *blank stare*

Me: “So… I’ll have to ask you to get out of the canoe.”

Dad: *blank stare*

Me: *more sternly* “Sir! I really need you to get out now so we can get started.”

Dad: “No! You can’t tell me what to do! Do you think I don’t know how to use a canoe?!”

Me: “Well, I’m sure you are very experienced with canoes, but some boys aren’t, so we just want to make sure everyone knows the ground rules.”

Dad: “Do you know who I am? You can’t talk to me like this! Who do you think you are to talk to me like this? Do you know who I am? I have the power to fire your a**!”

Coworker: “Whoa, hey, calm down. You don’t need to talk to her like that. She’s just doing her job.”

Dad: “She works here?! So she, like, gets… paid and stuff?”

Me: “Yes, I get paid and stuff.”

Dad: “But you’re a girl!”

Me: “Yes, I am a girl.”

Dad: “At a Boy Scout camp?! This is just wrong! You can’t work here! Who hired you? What sick freak would hire a girl to do a man’s job?!”

(I begin writing names and numbers on a piece of paper.)

Me: “Okay, if you’d like to complain to my supervisor, here’s her number. Otherwise, you can talk to the camp director; her name is Elizabeth.”

Dad: *storms off*

(Later, I found out that this same dad attempted to pop a wheelie in the canoe and was put on our “do not canoe” list.)

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