Cinco De Uh Oh
Cinco De Mayo is nearing and the celebration literally means “Five of May”. If that’s creative, I question if I am.
Cinco De Mayo is to celebrate the victory of the Mexican army over the French during the Battle of Puebla on May 5th, 1862. (How did we ever survive without Google?) Therefore, there ain’t no party like a Five of May party at a long term care facility.
This party consisted of a Cinco De Mayo themed Bingo and a guessing game. The Activity Convenor asked the residents to guess how many hot peppers were in a tall vase. In reality, the hot peppers were beads, but the recreation budget couldn’t accommodate hot peppers or a larger vase for that matter…
The spicy twist? The Activity Convenor never counted the “red peppers” prior to placing them in the vase. So my first task as a recreation therapy student was counting beads. The heat was on and oddly enough bead counting is not offered in any recreation therapy university class.
The residents were occupied with Bingo and didn’t notice me frantically counting until a red flower bead got wedged in the neck of the vase, blocking the remaining beads. I immediately begun to sweat profusely and thought this is not a good first impression. If I am unable to complete the simplest of tasks. Might as well quit now!
I smacked the bottom of the vase, banged it on the table, tried sticking my pudgy fingers down the vase, but that flower bead was not ready to bloom this May.
Defeated, I fessed up to the Activity Convenor. She calmly told me to try and count the beads still left in the vase. So I threw out the number 270, but someone could have definitely argued me on that.
My sincerest apologies to the resident who probably would have won the prize if I could have counted beads properly.
First lesson as an intern: always count the objects before placing in the container
To my knowledge, that bead is still stuck.
Now as a Recreation Therapist, I count more exciting things, like budgets.
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sherry lynn
This seems like a typical day in recreation. Now I don’t feel so alone with these simple yet difficult tasks haha
thewreckinrecreation.com
Isn’t that the truth Lynn! It’s comforting to know when people go through the same struggles in the recreation world. Thank you for all your love and support 🙂
Wendy Oliver-McKenzie
Can anyone ever fully understand the feeling of importance that a young Recreation Therapy student feels when asked to take charge of the counting of peppers (or in this case beads)? Cinco de Mayo is always a busy day, although I was running the program I could see her counting away in the corner of the room and was amazed at the seriousness with which this student took to this important task, dumping out the beads separating them in to groups of 5 then later 10 so that the number would be accurate. Then the look of worry that she may have counted wrong turned into a look of absolute horror as she realized that one of the beads was stuck and that she was unable to shake it free to be able to accurately count the beads trapped below it. In that moment you could see her mind quickly running through all the things she had learned in her university courses especially Bead Extraction 101. As the program came closer to the moment that the number of the beads was to be given, her panic started to become apparent, red face, perspiration, hair being thrown up in a hazard bun… in the end it was a lost cause.
Our dear Rachelle did graduate as a Recreation Therapist even with this issue on her permanent record. If you are a future employer reading this with the thought to hire, take heed, she can do most things quite well, but you may want to leave the bead counting to someone with a bit more education!
thewreckinrecreation.com
Haha you are hilarious Wendy! I’m so glad you were there by my side to help me along during this tough time!