One Of A Kind

What a nice weekend I had.

Due to my antibiotics and just general joy of feeling better, there was no drunken debauchery this weekend and none last weekend either. I can’t quite put into words how nice it was to wake up both days this weekend feeling great. So nice.

Saturday I went to my first tour training for the riverboats. When I walked in there was quite an amazing looking woman standing in front of everyone. Remember that most docents at CAF are older, retired, well educated, etc. Well this woman looked pretty much like Bette Midler in Beaches. She had bleach blonde hair, lots of makeup, a pretty good fake tan and a big wide belt to cinch her middle. The second she opened her mouth I knew just exactly what kind of woman this was.

As she belted out that she is the tour director for the river cruise (which is a big deal), she asked us if we could hear her? Um, yes. Definitely.

She went on to tell us that she wasn’t going to mince words, that sometimes she swears and she can’t help it, that she’s going to give it to us the way it is, that we’re going to learn the tour her way or no way and that she’ll admit she’s wrong, but made sure to tell us it doesn’t happen very often.

Right off the bat, I loved her.

When we stepped outside during a break she made sure to reach down to my pants area and fix my zipper herself, before stepping really close to me and whispering about how the other docents sometimes look down on the river tour docents.

Of course there’s no reason for this on either side, but I have to say I believe there are politics in any and every organization. Right? Everything is “political”, but the politics of docents are some of the most entertaining. I loved hearing about how the river tour docents do things “differently” and how our tour director was going to be “all over” our collective “asses”.

It’s going to be a ton of work, a ton. At this point they figure you know what you’re doing so there’s not nearly the hand holding there is when first learning tours. But everyone in class said this was what they were waiting for, this is why we all became docents and that none of us, not one of us can wait until we’re giving tours on the boats and doing bits.

Can’t. Wait.