The keys, if not returned to the office, are left either in the doors of the cabins, or--more often--inside the cabins. Therefore, of course, the fact that a key is not at the office or sticking out the keyhole of the cabin to which it belongs does not necessarily indicate that the people are still in the cabin.
Grant was particularly embarrassed on one occasion when he walked into an occupied cabin. We had seen the car drive out of the garage adjacent to the cabin, and it was ten minutes before noon.
Grant told me later that he entered the cabin, set down his cleaning equipment, and went toward the bathroom to get the dirty towels. Just as he reached there a woman backed out toward him, saying,
"Here, honey, fasten my brassiere, will you? Goodness, you made a flying trip. I didn't expect you back so soon." Paralyzed, not knowing what else to do, Grant numbly fastened the hooks of her brassiere. Then he turned and bounded out of the place, gathering up his cleaning equipment as he fled.
Occasionally, too, through some mixup it happens that we try to rent the same cabin to two different groups of people. If several cars drive in at once, whichever of us is taking care of them might, in the confusion, forget to write down on the daily list that a certain cabin is rented to a certain party. Then, later, finding the space still blank after the cabin number on the list, one of us is apt to try to give that cabin to someone else. What usually stops the error before it has gone too far is the fact that the key for that cabin has, of course, been given to the first customer, and its absence makes us remember the unrecorded transaction. Sometimes, though, in such a case, we pick up a master key, and take the prospective customer to look at a cabin without noticing that the key to that cabin has been given out.
This results in a lot of confusion, needless to say, and to break ourselves of the carelessness which brings it about, Grant and I have worked out a system of penalizing each other for making the error of trying to rent a cabin twice, or for laying the groundwork for the other to make the error. If he is the guilty one, he has to wash the dishes for one day; if I'm at fault, I have to mow the lawn the next time it needs mowing.
One night after renting a cabin, Grant came out of the office and said, "There's a couple that won't stay long, I'll bet a horned toad. We'll be able to rent their cabin again in a couple of hours."
Sure enough, an hour later we saw their car, a cream-colored coupe, grinding along the gravel and swinging into the line of cars on the highway.
"I'm getting so I can spot a short stop pretty well," Grant bragged. "Guess I'll go get the cabin cleaned up once so we can rent it again."
Five minutes later he came back, his skin flushed and his blue eyes sheepish.