The manager straightens his visor and leans on a miniature golf club. \u201cAnd over here, we have the 11th hole. It\u2019s real tricky. You\u2019ll learn that real soon once you start work. First of all, it\u2019s a Par Four. Most of the other holes are Par Three or even Two. So, like I said, tricky. If you start to get a bottleneck of folks, it\u2019s gonna be here. And families don\u2019t come play pirate miniature golf because they want to stand around. The kids are going to get antsy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGot it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s easy for the ball to go into the water on this hole. We\u2019ve put up some netting, but it only seems to work about half the time. Also, the 11th tends to be where a kid admits their suicidal ideation, so that\u2019ll slow things down. Anyway, you may have to provide an extra ball if it goes too deep into the water to extract easily. But don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll get it during the Monday cleanout.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait. What?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re closed on Mondays so we can do a good deep clean, get all the balls that have gone in the water, that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no, I mean the thing you said. About suicidal ideation?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah, right. That\u2019ll cause a bottleneck, too. The moms seem to take it extra hard. With that and the Par Four and the water hazard, you might need to encourage the waiting families to go around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we go back to the suicidal ideation part? That doesn\u2019t seem \u2026 normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that\u2019s not for me to say. A big problem is that the bathrooms aren\u2019t really accessible until the 16th hole, so that\u2019s five whole holes\u2014ha\u2014people gotta get through. And we don\u2019t actually keep facial tissues in the bathroom, but that\u2019s ok because most moms carry some in their purse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFacial tissue?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the crying. Some are good at holding it in, bless \u2019em. But every now and then you\u2019ll get one who can\u2019t stop the tears and you just have to hope another mom has Kleenex in her purse and takes pity. Now, here on the 12th hole, you\u2019ll notice that\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry, can we go back again to the 11th hole? Kids are confessing thoughts of suicide?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, not all the kids. You\u2019ll learn to tell which. Like, the five-year-olds are fine. They just want to read gory stories about pirates and hit their balls into the water. It\u2019s the preteens mostly. The ones who look kind of uncomfortable. Boys who maybe seem a bit too girly, girls who look like they wouldn\u2019t be caught dead in a skirt. You\u2019ll figure it out the longer you work here. It can be helpful to kind of draw out their check-in process, so they end up behind the other families rather than in front. Less likely to have a bottleneck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2026 the bottleneck is not\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gotta keep things moving, you know? Turn, burn, and earn, baby. That\u2019s a phrase from my restaurant days. I used to run a restaurant. Margins were too low, though. Mini golf is way more lucrative. But only if we get \u2018em in and out, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAren\u2019t you at all worried that these kids are having thoughts of suicide? Beyond just the bottleneck it causes at miniature golf?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that\u2019s hardly my business. I\u2019m not here to tell anyone how to parent their kids. I\u2019m here to run a miniature golf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there must be something we can do! These are kids\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re suggesting we turn away the families with the weird kids, the LGBT-whatevers, I get your instinct but it\u2019s just not good business sense. All it takes is one keyboard warrior and a bad review.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, I did look into moving the bathrooms closer to the 11th hole, but the overhead on that was too high to be practical. Besides, the suicide-and-crying thing doesn\u2019t happen that often. Maybe one or two times.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA season?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHa! If only. One or two times a day. Well, that\u2019s the off season. Spring break, Memorial Day through Labor Day, that\u2019s when you gotta be ready. We\u2019ve had as high as three to five times an hour. Lord, that was a rough day. So many complaints about the bottlenecks. I had to refund six families.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSigns! We could put up signs with the suicide prevention hotline number!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see you\u2019re trying to think entrepreneurially, and I appreciate that. Lots of kids from your generation are just here to put in minimum effort and get a paycheck. So, don\u2019t take this the wrong way, but signs about suicide prevention are a terrible idea. Might make even more kids start confessing. Then the bottleneck\u2019ll just get worse. But you keep brainstorming like that. I can already see you might be assistant manager material one day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut why are kids confessing thoughts of suicide at a miniature golf course at all? Why would this course make them think about suicide?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, I can tell this has you rattled, but I only have about half an hour for this training, so we really need to move it along. Josh can only handle the front desk for so long on his own.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe short answer is miniature golf doesn\u2019t have a dang thing to do with thoughts of suicide. These kids had \u2019em before they came in and they\u2019ll have \u2019em after. They\u2019re unhappy. They don\u2019t feel like they can be themselves, I guess. That\u2019s not on us. That\u2019s a society thing or whatever. We aren\u2019t gonna fix that with a sign or moving the restrooms. Now, can we finish the training?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOk, great. Because the 12th hole has a blind corner that\u2019s kind of a doozy. Add in a mom and kid both trying to blink back tears and you\u2019re looking at a lot of balls being hit off the course. Hey \u2026 ! Where are you going? Bah. Young people today. No one wants to work anymore. Josh! We need to reopen the job posting! Yeah, another one. Oh, excuse me there, ma\u2019am. No, we don\u2019t have tissues in the bathrooms, but you can use the toilet paper. Only five more holes until you can easily exit to the restrooms. No problem. I hope you and your son\u2014oh, sorry, daughter\u2014have a great rest of your day. Oh, and remember: if you get a hole in one on the 18th\u2014you play again for free!\u201d<\/p>\n
The manager straightens his visor again and looks toward the 11th hole. Another kid, another mother, both teeing up. He thinks to whisper a prayer but goes to refill the toilet paper in the bathrooms instead. Tonight is Kaylee\u2019s 11th birthday. He\u2019s taking her bowling.<\/p>\n
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The 11th hole tends to be where a kid admits their suicidal ideation, so that\u2019ll slow things down. Anyway, you may have to provide an extra ball if it goes too deep into the water. We\u2019ve put up some netting, but it only seems to work about half the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":23598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4321],"class_list":["post-22594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-lbgtqia-transrights","writer-kate-maxlow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22594"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23600,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22594\/revisions\/23600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}