By J. Lee Austin, MD
If a Blockhead Could Block Traffic
Remember that crazy power cord explosion made famous in our last episode? Well, that was just one of many blunders stinking up my otherwise illustrious RV career. Other examples of extreme incompetence or lack of discernible cognition include such crap-cidents as cutting a corner and rolling the beast into the mud for the subsequent crunching of a $700 cargo door. Or cutting a corner at the gas pump and elegantly striping the rig with a lovely shade of Valero Blue. Does cutting corners ever work out for anybody or is it just me? Asking for a friend.
J. Lee is a contributor to Crystal Beach Local News, and is the founder of The Good Help Network, a reader-supported publication.
Another good way of royally flubbing things in an RV is driving in reverse, especially with a tow vehicle. This rookie maneuver makes for a surprisingly easy way to destroy a hitch. And if at first you don’t succeed (you know, like if it’s just bent), slamming on the brakes at highway speed should finish the job. That’s when the hitch rips entirely apart, gouges hard into the roadway and makes things interesting quicker than you can say splat.
That’s also when your best Johnny-on-the-spot scrambles to detach the used-up hitch and dashes around in frantic panic to get the whole mess off the raceway before anybody gets smushed or scrambled. Luckily I had some Good Help and yeah, I must confess it’s not the only time my precious consort has plucked my fat from the fire. Thanks Kimmi!
But the real doozy-to-beat-all went down in the drowsy east-Tex town of Woodville. There I was cruising sleepily along when I missed my turn to Palestine. After spewing the requisite epithets, I focused on turning the monster around. As fate would have it (stupid fate), it was right about then that highway 69 spread out to five lanes and two shoulders, all of which presented a great, wide, sweeping and steeply banking turn. Beautiful and seductive, it beckoned like forbidden love … simply irresistible.
I slowed the 60 feet of Fleetwood motor coach with Z-71 pickup-in-tow to a crawl, trickled as far as right as the shoulder would allow, checked for traffic and began the U-turn from hell. I was soon to learn what a sinking feeling it is to run out of asphalt just when you need it most. Insert more indecorous rhetoric here.
Since backing up was not an option (bitter reminder of previous harsh lessons), we were stuck. But not your average stuck. The acute angle of the hitch and the steep incline of the road had conspired to wrench the whole apparatus into a totally vicious bind. It’s a physics thing. I’m sure I wouldn’t understand.
Thank god and Acme for 2-pound hammers. As I ran back to get it, I glanced into the eyes of the traffic now piling up all around us, to see stares of utter bewilderment. I would have loved to explain, but as Todd Snider would say, “I was … pressed for time.”
With the third angry hammer lick, the hitch finally and reluctantly turned loose. I looked up to see an 18 wheeler driver watching the show from his catbird seat and laughing his tonsils out. Glad somebody saw the humor. I know I didn’t. Pretty sure Kim didn’t. We were just happy to get it all undone and gone before the cops got there and arrested me with some charge like …
“Driver exhibiting an uncommon lack of common sense.”
Or the more pointed …
“Defendant representing a quintessentially imbecilic menace to society.”
I can just hear my attorney’s one-line defense …
“He really thought he could make it, your honor. Pinky swear.”
Y’all be careful, it’s a real monkey’s jungle out there. ~~ j ~~
“I may be dumb but I’m not stupid.” ~~ Terry Bradshaw
