This Ginger Snap Was No Cookie

I went to school with a boy named Harold Snap.

He had a little sister named Ginger.

No kidding. For real.

And the Snaps were members at the same swim club as my family, where I worked a variety of jobs as a kid. For a couple of summers, I worked in the snack bar, serving up tasty hot dogs and candy bars and sno-cones. Next to the snack bar was the basket room, which was situated at the entrance and where you signed in. You could also put your stuff in a basket, which is why it was called the basket room. There was a pay phone, and kids got phone calls all the time...a parent checking in with them, or a friend maybe. When someone got a phone call, the person working in the basket room would have to go to the PA system (which was otherwise playing the radio) and announce the phone call.

So I would be working in the snack bar, and the day-time manager (who happened to be a friend of my mom's and one of the Fat Sisters) would yell over to me..."Leslie, you have to come over here. Ginger got a phone call." She just couldn't say that name with a straight face and would start laughing, so I always had to announce Ginger's phone calls.

Off I would go to the basket room side of our little building, and I would get on the PA system and announce..."Ginger Snap, you have phone call...telephone call for Ginger...Snap."