My Terrible Bowling Trip

We drove through the many neighborhoods and the large streets that I knew around Memphis heading for I-78 towards Mississippi. This was not the first bowling trip I had been. Actually, there were many before this, so I was used to the long boring drives we were forced to go through. I started getting motion sickness, so I had to take some medicine to help stop the nausea. The medicine also made me drowsy, so it was tough for me to stay awake. Everything became a blur after about 30 minutes as I struggled to keep my eyes open. It was as if I could hear, but not see what I was listening to outside and inside the car. After about ten minutes of trying to fight the power of sleep, I gave up and let it take over my body. I woke up to a horrible cow manure smell, and looked outside the window to see a sign that said Mississippi, Welcome Home. I knew then why it smelled so disgusting, because of all the cows and farms that started showing up on the side of the road as we passed into Mississippi. I quickly turned the air conditioner from outside air to inside air in order to block out the terrible odor. I could feel the cold air attacking my defenseless skin until I was forced to turn the knob to create a warmer climate in the car. Everything started passing by so fast because I would fall in and out of consciousness until we arrived in Foley, Alabama, about one hour and 45 minutes from Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. We decided to stop at a McDonalds to get a quick bite to eat. Somehow we could not find a McDonalds anywhere in Foley, so we stopped at place I had never eaten at, Whataburger. After we finished eating, we hopped back in the car and were on our way. We arrived in Ft. Walton Beach at 11:00 p.m. and we checked into a hotel nearby the bowling alley. Then we started unpacking all our belongings from our car, starting with the all the stuff in the backseat. We took our clothes into our room, then our food and drinks, then all our expensive belongings such as cell phones and the Garmin. I opened the trunk to get my bowling balls out in order to keep them in a controlled climate in the hotel room. When I opened the trunk I gasped at the sight of the emptiness.

The Host with the Most

The man stomped back up to the host stand after a mere five minutes of him being sat. He asked us if he could speak with the manager, so we nicely stepped away to fetch our manager from the kitchen. She swiftly walked up to the host stand and with a friendly voice asked the man what she could do for him. Without any hesitation at all the man started screaming at our manager, making odd accusations about us not caring about our guests. She tried to calm him and get him away from the host stand so all our remaining waiting guests did not have to hear this belligerent man scream at the top of his lungs about nonsense. He refused as he questioned why we should care about the other guests if we did not care about him and his family. She finally got him away from the front door and he was demanding numbers. He wanted her number and our corporate manager's number. The best and easiest thing she could do was just give him what he wanted, the same thing that she taught us to do. He then decided to call the corporate manager right there on the spot. It was funny that he did not pick up the phone, but he angrily told us he was going to eat and if he did not get a phone call back in the next few days there was going to be hell to pay. Our corporate manager made us write letters of apology to this man, and inside the envelopes were coupons that allowed him to get a certain amount of free meals. We wanted so badly to yell and scream back at this man, but there was an unwritten rule that we knew held us from doing so. We knew if we did that we would be in heaps of trouble and could ultimately lead to us getting fired. It is hard to hold back your emotions some time, but when dealing with Customer Service it is part of the job.