This week, I said goodbye to a dear, and beloved member of my family. My tent-trailer. It has been a faithful companion for the past ten years and is more important to me than my own children. For those of you who may be thinking this is an exaggeration, let me assure you, it is not.
My tent-trailer would sit tirelessly and uncomplaining outside in the driveway for months, patiently waiting for me to take it out on our next outing. The kids can’t go five minutes without demanding food, clothes, or some kind of attention. The trailer provided me with safe shelter from rain and snow on many camping trips. The kids can’t be bothered to get me a soda out of the refrigerator. The trailer is a cheap alternative to hotels when travelling. The kids suck money out of my pockets like a Vegas slot machine.
Advantage: tent-trailer.
So why did I get rid of it? Optimism. I made the blunder of thinking positively. And I should know better than that by now, because optimism has consistently kicked me in the teeth over the years. It always comes at a price. And for me, this time, that price was $26,000.
Let me explain.
On the last day of 2017, I received an e-mail advising me that a short story I had written was going to be published. The magazine to which I had submitted the story stated they loved the piece and wanted to buy it. I chose to view this as a sign that 2018 is going to be a terrific year for me. I furthered my string of bad decisions by mentioning my new positive outlook to my wife, and she informed me that, because 2018 was going to be so fantastic, we should replace our old trailer with a brand new one. I am not totally sure how she made the connection between selling a story and buying a trailer, I still have not completely figured out how her head works, but nonetheless we ended up buying a new trailer.
I took my old trailer to the dealership and received $1,500 against the cost of the new one in trade. When I asked what I could get if I signed over the children as well, the salesman threatened to call the police.
Advantage: tent-trailer. Again.
I am going to miss the old trailer. I still remember our very first camping trip after buying it, or as my wife and I fondly refer to it: the weekend that almost killed our marriage.
When we arrived at the campgrounds, the sun had already set. It was dark and so cloudy there wasn’t even any moonlight to help us see. My wife hopped out of the truck, ran behind the trailer, and began to direct me as I attempted to back the trailer into our reserved spot. I promptly backed into a tree.
I believe my wife did it on purpose. She insists that I simply do not know how to follow directions, but since I am writing this blog and she is not here to defend herself, I am going to go ahead and say it was on purpose. Following the collision, there was a brief discussion about visual impairment, challenged intellects, and head placement in relation to other locations on the body. There was also a lively round of suggestions as to other locations we could go and colorful methods of arriving there.
While my wife and I had our “chat,” the children ran off to hide in the woods shouting some nonsense about the advantages of finding a family of wolves to adopt them.
When I had run out of fresh new ways to describe my wife’s skill at giving directions, I told her I no longer wished for her assistance, and climbed back into the truck. She told me that was a fortunate coincidence as she no longer wished to assist. After five more unhindered attempts at parking, I finally got the trailer situated in its designated slot with only minimal additional damage to local flora.
I unhitched the tent-trailer from the truck, and I began to set it up, an activity that generally takes about half an hour. Five minutes into the process, it began to rain. The kids finally made their way back to our campsite, but only so they could crawl into the truck to stay dry as dad drowned in the downpour. While the rest of the family sat in the truck with the heater running, I toiled blindly in the water and mud, working with a tiny flashlight clamped between my teeth, trying to remember if I was supposed to crank clockwise to lift the roof or counter-clockwise. By the time I had finished setting up the trailer, I was soaked, shivering, tired, and ready to kill the next person that said, “If you need any help, just let me know.”
I banged on the truck window to let my loving family know that I was finished and to ask if they could stop singing along to the radio long enough to help me move our luggage. They grudgingly assented. Finally, we all crowded into the trailer to hide from the weather and to have dinner. I warmed some hot dogs for us to eat. I say “warmed” because “cooked” is too strong of a word for what that tiny propane stove did to food. It was like trying to prepare a meal over a candle flame. I suppose it was fortunate we had opted for hotdogs rather than hamburgers for the trip. A nice case of E. coli just might have been the final nail in the coffin where our marriage currently rested.
Ah, good times.
The amazing part of this story isn’t that we survived to go home two days later. The amazing part is that we actually packed up the trailer a little while later and went camping again. And then again. Over and over, year after year. We survived snow, wind, rain, and even a few bears in our little trailer, and still we didn’t have enough common sense to just stay home.
Now, we have a bigger, fancier trailer. Does this mean better camping? Or just bigger disasters? I suppose only time will tell.
I think my wife already has an attorney on retainer just in case it doesn’t go well.