Have a Nice Day
Sometimes a day takes on a character as if it were a person. It starts out where something happens, not a big something, just a something, but then more like that keeps happening and pretty soon that’s what the day is about.
Today was happy for me, even cheerful, but shit kept happening as if to test my limits, to see how much it takes to break me down. If that was the object, it failed, I still feel cheerful, but I am interested in the idea of the pattern; I think that’s how gods and devils get invented.
I had it all figured out: About 9AM I would leave the casino parking lot where I had spent the night in my motor home, and this would, taking into account a planned stop along the way, get me to the brake shop at least a half hour ahead of my noon appointment. Everything fell into place at breakfast, and I rolled onto the freeway a little before 9.
My planned stop was to top off the rig’s tank from the cans I filled up in Oregon for substantially less than it was selling for here. Again, according to plan. Beating the system is a favorite theme of mine.
The cans were in the trunk of the car, and the car was on the trailer. Backwards, so the only way to get the cans was to take the car off the trailer. Not a terribly big deal, but big enough that you don’t want to do it more often than necessary. Meaning, in other words, that when it’s time to do the cans you want the rig to be able to take all 30 gallons, not top off with two gallons left in a can that you have to deal with later.
And that provides the answer to the obvious question: “You just spent the night at the casino, why didn’t you just do the cans there?” According to my mental arithmetic, the rig wouldn’t be able to take all 30 gallons until about 20 miles down the road. It just so happened that 20 miles down the road was the locus of a nice freeway rest area, so the plan was to go the 20 miles, pull off and do the cans under some shade trees.
Which brings us to annoyance #1: the rest area was closed.
Okay, fine, I pulled off at the next exit, thinking I’d find a wide spot and do it there. Except when got to the stop sign at the end of the ramp I noticed that there was no on-ramp ahead of me. Was this one of those rare exits where you can’t get back, and you have to drive 20 miles in the reverse direction on side roads past cows in fields and trailers painted with signs depicting a man nailed to a cross and billboards about casinos with “loose slots” (swear to god, the first time I saw that term I thought it was referring to a whorehouse) and slogans about water rights and politicians ruining the country? Aren’t they supposed to warn you about that? The no-return exits, I mean. The cows and the signs, you have to deal with those on your own. I realized I had to pee. Maybe shit too.
Whatever happens, I can’t just sit at the stop sign forever. This exit may be bumfuck Egypt (no offense, Egyptians, although between the Islamic nut-cases and the military junta, maybe you agree with me), but somebody is bound to come up behind me at some point and get pissed off about me holding things up. Maybe it’d be a guy that just got fired from his job and was driving home to load up with guns and ammo to go back there and settle this matter once and for all. I wouldn’t want to get crosswise with that guy, so I began to look around for a place to park while I formulated Plan B.
That’s when I noticed right next to me was an on-ramp circling around inside the loop made by my ramp. It headed back via cloverleaf in the direction I was going, so no prob. Now it’s just a matter of finding an out-of-the-way place to park where I can do the can thing. Straight ahead was a farm road with grass growing up through the cracks in the blacktop. Good sign I won’t be bothered there. Just a matter of getting turned around and backing the trailer far enough down the road to avoid the same imagined complaint about blocking a stop sign. This was well within my skill set, so I remained cheerful and upbeat as I positioned everything just so, got out and ran through the drill about taking the car off the trailer and emptying the cans.
About a half hour later I returned to the freeway to resume the trip. Everything still on schedule, no problem. I sang some songs.
Issue #2: A mile prior to the exit the GPS was telling me to take, one of those computer-generated signs advised that the exit would be closed for construction during some nighttime hours. 7PM to 6AM or some such. When I got to the exit itself, a small orange sign said “Exit Closed”, but it wasn’t blocking the road so I figured it was an artifact of the nighttime closure that never got taken away. I proceeded down the exit only to discover that my path was blocked by a roller. The pavement was all torn up, machines were doing things, and guys were walking around. A flagger was controlling the traffic on the road I couldn’t reach on account of the roller. I imagined backing the trailer all the way up the ramp and trying to avoid becoming the cause of a major high-speed pileup once I reached the traffic. I imagined this not ending well at all. I had pissed when I did the gas cans; I realized I now had to shit. I get the shitting impulse quite often when I feel trapped. I think it’s my body wanting to be ready in case I have to run like hell.
But, in keeping with the tenor of the day, the roller moved back, evidently so I could proceed onto the unpaved surface, following the line of cars the flagger had just let through. Pattern now established: shit happens, but it ends up okay. I sang another verse of the song I had begun before taking the exit.
Issue #3: I reached the brake shop in plenty of time to unhitch the trailer, which I was sure would be required before they would take my motor home into their shop. But where to park the trailer? I went in and asked the gal in the office. She said, oh, there’s plenty of space back there, just park it wherever. I selected the space directly in front of the door of the bay where they would be doing the work. That way it would be a straight shot after they were done … backing up to the trailer. I no sooner got the trailer unhooked when this big fat guy came out and started ragging on me about how a big truck wouldn’t be able to get around me. “But, oh well, we can move the trailer with a forklift if we have to, so okay, fine.” He walked away. No big trucks, no forklifts, just the guy ragging on me for nothing. There it is again: bad shit that blows away.
I fixed a sandwich for lunch, and while I was eating it the mechanic came out and drove the rig into the bay. The whole operation took maybe 15 minutes, max, and there was no reason in hell I needed to unhitch the trailer in the first place, but whatever. He gets done, and I guide him back to the trailer and hook it up. Everything still going nicely. At last my steering wheel will be sitting straight again when I drive straight down a road. Is there paperwork to be done? Yes, there is, and I should follow him into the office.
Issue #4: We go in and he goes all tappety tap on the computer until he says, “That’ll be $52.34.” I say “What the fuck? You just finished what the guy didn’t do when he did the alignment in Oregon!” He says, “The warranty is only for 30 days, and this was almost 60 days ago.” I tell him I tried to get it fixed the same day at another place along my way, but the shop wasn’t set up for it. I tell him how I live in the motor home so it was parked most of the time after that. I think he saw this was not leading to a happy place, so he said he’d waive the warranty thing and not charge me anything. “Because I’m having a nice day,” he said. There it is again, another brush with pissed-offdedness, but it ended up with me singing another song as soon as I got back on the road.
I pretty much knew the way for the rest of the trip, but it had been a while so I reviewed it on Google and then punched it into the GPS too, just for an abundance of caution. This initiated:
Issue #5. The GPS (Magellan Roadmate, in case you’re wondering) went completely off the rails, telling me to turn right when I should turn left, take ramps I shouldn’t, do u-turns for no reason. It was bizarre. Fortunately, by the time it started its orgy of misdirection I was completely confident about the route, so I just let it go nuts, which it continued to do, directing me to turn down side streets in town and cow paths in the country … anything to get me off the correct road. By this time the pattern was becoming so obvious it was funny. I chuckled and sang another song.
What’s the point to this story, anyway? The point is that if you keep singing you can put up with a lot of shit. Because, really, the shit is just that, and it doesn’t merit your getting caught up in it. So learn a song today, okay?
