Do people leave their brains and manners home when on vacation?

I work in an attraction in a tourist resort town.   It's wonderful work and get to meet a lot of really nice people.  But then there are the ones we feel have left both their manners and their brains at home

A little background on the attraction I work at so some of these will make a little more sense .  I work at a gem mine where we sell different size buckets of dirt with gemstones in them.  We are an attraction not a real mine.  We can make jewelry out of some of the stones that are found .

Here are some of my favorite:

KIDS LISTEN PARENTS DON'T:

My spiel about how do it is something like this "four or five shovels of dirt, then wash it out with an up and down motion"  The kids will do just as you say, but either mom or dad will say" He said only 1 shovel full!  Or He said to go sideways"  Before the kids say something that will get them in trouble I step in and say "No they are doing what I said".

DOESN'T LISTEN AT ALL:

I had a person come up with two kids and say "How much would it be for two children". I say "We don't charge by the person, but by the bucket and both can mine out of the same bucket and they start at $15 and go up, right here is a complete list of all our buckets and there prices"  He said "OK" and looked at the price list for about ten minutes.  He now says "Well, how much would it be for two children then?" "I said $15" which made him happy.

I WANT THAT BUCKET:

We have buckets that range in size from about ten pounds to close to a hundred.  They are stacked in such a way we must take them down in a pattern.  If not they can fall.  All the buckets with in a type are just about alike.  You can't in an attraction have two people get the same size bucket and one getting more than the other.  Most people just take what we hand them, a few ask if they can pick out their bucket and when we explain to them that its dangerous they say ok they understand and with some stacks we can give them a choice of several.  But you always have the person who demands to have that bucket at the bottom of the stack.  As long as they are not the ones who get hurt, why should they care.

SHOULD I KEEP IT?

My spiel goes "Keep it if it's the size of a pencil eraser or bigger, no matter how ugly it looks to you. When you have gone through the bucket, you will go inside and see one of our assayers who will tell you what you found".   People will pick up a stone about the size of a quarter and ask "This is just a rock isn't it, I should toss it away, right"  I repeat the spiel.  A few minutes later and they are holding a stone about the size of a half dollar "This is just a rock isn't it, I should toss it away, right"….I say "KEEP IT – when you go inside to get them identified, then, if its just a rock, toss it away".  If lucky this will be the last time – but usually this type of person will have to check on at least four or five more stones, to make sure.

WHITE PANTS:

This is one of my favorites.  The dirt is put into a box with a screen on the bottom and placed in the water to clean the dirt away form the rocks.  I had this woman come in one night dressed very nicely in White.  She takes a dry box and places it in her lap and gets ready to start putting dirt into the box.  I ask her if she wanted to get dirt all over herself.  She gives me a funny look and then looks at the box….And thanks me for telling her.

SEVEN SMALL MEN:

When I first started people would ask me where the dirt came from and I would with a smile on my face say that we had tunnels under the building and the road and had seven small men mining the mine.  They were a friendly bunch that whistled while they worked.  The kids caught on and would laugh, but the adults would look at me and ask – is there a reason they have to be small?  I would then tell them snow white liked them that way.  Stopped telling the story, too many didn't get it.

On the whole most of the people are wonderful and having fun.  It's a great place to work.