You were right. I was wrong.
I am so used to saying those words. I’m basically a pro at responding to ‘I told you so’. It doesn’t even bother me anymore. I say it to Sarah, my kids, old coworkers, my brother, my sister, my in-laws, Nugget the dog. I have no disdain in my voice as I say it. I say it with humility and sincerity. I’m so good at it by now that I’m thinking about starting some zoom classes and charging a shitload for training headstrong assholes in the art of admitting wrongness. I know plenty so I’m thinking this could be a pretty solid business plan.
My latest act of knuckleheadedness comes after a test run with the camper. I was convinced that we should just hit the road. Come on! We’ll figure it out on the way. Gosh you’re so conservative. We don’t need to plan this out. Just pack some stuff. Oh, I know we need to figure out the kids school stuff but we’ll never leave if we have to plan everything out. We don’t need a test run. Release that shit to production! Test live! That’s how we do it in the software business (it’s not actually but I say stuff like that sometimes to really hammer a point home).
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to have everything ready in time to leave straight from the first camp spot.” Sarah says.
“I’m sure we can figure it out.” I say and by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’.
“No, let’s just do a test run.”
“Fine.” I walked off and sulked for a bit. Oh well, I thought, I’m sure she’ll realize she’s wrong when this goes smoothly and she’s wishing we were just heading straight northwest from Hiawassee, Ga after three glorious nights of camping. Glamping really considering the sweet vintage rig that we’re rolling in.
Rewind about a month to when we started planning this whole thing out. We were about to close on our house and were shopping for a vehicle that could fit six that can tow a trailer. We were originally looking for a three row SUV until I had a breakthrough. There are other vehicle styles that fit six people. Specifically really tough looking trucks that have four doors and magically six spots. Three across the front and three across the back. And they have beds in the back that you can put a ton of crap in. I bring it up to Sarah and she confirms. I am a genius. We high five and buy a 2013 GMC Sierra…Texas Edition. Oh if my high school friends could see me now.
Now fast forward back to this unnecessary test run. Let me start this portion of the post by making sure everyone knows how much I love my kids. I love them a lot. There, it’s said. Now, we’re about an hour into the trip somewhere around the 285 loop and Sarah and I are both about to have a panic attack. Marnie is sitting directly between us and we both seem to realize simultaneously that she expects us to be her play people. She talked non-stop for one straight hour. So many questions. I’m driving and Sarah straight up told her that she wasn’t going to play the game she was playing, which was some type of fantasizing about all the stuff that she wants that we won’t give her. I think she was talking about a bunch of different car brands / styles that she wants, none of which were the truck that we were driving at that moment. Ironically, I was also wishing that we had a different car at that very moment.
So we’re just over an hour into the trip and Sarah and I look at each other and no longer feel smart about the truck. We start to discuss alternate seating arrangements and decide that maybe having Greta in the front will be better. Yes better for everyone. Marnie would much prefer the malleable Ruth and Cormac to the irritable Sarah and Chris. We stop to get gas and make some rearrangements.
Greta hops in the front and immediately lays down in Sarah’s lap. Jackpot, we think. Sarah looks over at me and I look back at her and without saying anything we silently agree, ‘We’re pretty smart and flexible. Look at us figuring this shit out. See this is going to be a great trip. We shouldn’t have been worried. We make good decisions.’ Yes, we can have long silent conversations like that because we’ve basically morphed into a single person. It’s gross. Things were going swell for exactly enough time for us to have that telepathic convo then Greta popped up and launched into a full plot description of a story that could have been a movie or a graphic novel or really anything because I was not paying attention at all. I think it was Alvin and Chipmunks or Captain Underpants or Eyes Wide Shut. I’m not really sure. I’m sure the story was fantastic.
Normally I love Greta’s stories. She’s so happy as she tells them and I know they bring her much joy. But I was feeling claustrophobic. I was pulling thousands of pounds of metal behind thousands of pounds of metal as we entered some of the relatively smallest mountains in the country on a two hour trip. This trip is nothing. We’re about to embark on days, no weeks of driving. Two hours ain’t shit. These mountains ain’t shit. Imagine going through the fucking Bighorn Mountains for hours while trying to engage in a conversation that does not end…ever. The conversation goes as long as the driving is happening. The driving is happening until we get from point A to point B. That means the conversation happens from point A to point B. FUCK THIS TRUCK. I’m a fucking dumbass idiot. Case in point but it doesn’t stop there.
We got to the campsite. I impressed myself by backing the camper into our parking pad with only like seven tries. I pop out and start hooking shit up. I feel like a fucking pro cause I practiced this stuff. I was ready. I start lighting the pilot lights for the water heater, the fridge. Success. Success. Fuck yeah. I wave to the neighbors as they judge me for wearing my silly little mask. “What’s up?” I ask in a muffled voice. “What?” they say. I pull down the mask. “Oh nothing, I was just saying ‘what’s up’.”. They respond, “Oh, uh, nothin”. Sweet.
It took me too long to find the electrical box but I found it and confidently hooked up the standard extension cord then plugged in the adapter that took multiple conversations that went a little like…
“Hey, I’m looking for an adapter. One that goes from an extension chord type plug, kinda like you’d find in a house, into an RV…”
“Like a 115V?”
“Uh, maybe. It’s got like three prongs but they are bigger…”
“Ok…”
“And two plugs are sort of curved…”
“Oh that’s a 125”
“…well maybe not curved but they are diagonal…”
“Oh, ok…” (he’s losing faith in my descriptive skills)
“…it goes to like an RV plug…”
“Yeah, we don’t have that here.”
So I had to go on Amazon and let them read my mind to find the adapter. Of course they were able to because their search engines speak perfect idiot. Of course, Sarah has created a way to stick it to Amazon a little because she got so sick of seeing their vans everywhere. She cancelled our prime membership a couple years ago but kept our prime credit cards which earn point. We still get stuff on Amazon but only with points. The adapter was purchased with points and we got free shipping! Take that you monopolistic bastards.
Boyah, the electrical was hooked up. I was literally strutting around the RV with confidence at this point. Test run? “Who needs a test run, Sarah?” I said out loud to myself so she didn’t hear. Next up, just gotta hook up the black water tank. No problem. I pulled out the brand new sewer pipe and started to screw the wrong part into the RV hookup. I looked at the other end and it didn’t look like it would fit into the sewer drain, at least not snuggly. I connected the parts then jammed the ill-fitting side into the drain. Eh, that should work. I opened the valve. Let’s test this fucker out, I thought.
“Sarah, give it a flush.” She did and nice clean water came flowing through the pipe. Gas, check. Electrical, check. Sewage, check. Let’s light this grill and chill. I’m the fucking RV master. “Kids, get your bathing suits. Let’s hit the creek!”
Things were going great. We cram in and have a shitty night sleep then get up, make coffee and breakfast. Everything’s working.
Huh, what’s that? A little water was coming out of the side of the toilet. Weird. “Hey Sarah, you see that water there?”
“Yeah.”
“Have the kids been shitting in the toilet?”
“Probably, we don’t want to use the public bathroom.”
“I thought we agreed to only use the RV toilet for pee.” (we hadn’t)
“Uh no, we got this RV so we could avoid using public bathrooms because of coronavirus.”
“You can’t poop in RVs though.” (not true)
“That can’t be true.”
So apparently we can think in unison but not be on the same page about how we’re going to use one of the critical functions of the RV. And honestly there’s no way to have a toilet around and have kids avoid using it. Lately (as long as I’ve been alive), I’ve noticed that upon stressful situations I’ve reacted a little irrationally. This is one of those instances. The toilet was stopped up and I had no idea how to fix it. Irrationally, I decided that we must have agreed to limit the use of the toilet. This entire episode could have been avoided had we just behaved the way I felt like we should have behaved in hindsight. What is wrong with the world?
I stewed on the clogged toilet for the next 24 hours. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I smelled shit and piss everywhere. This was ruining everything and there couldn’t possibly be a solution. We were going to have to rip it all out and start all the plumbing over with some type of composting toilet. How does that even work? This would postpone the trip for sure.
The next day I saw our neighbor and mentioned my grievances. “Is your valve open or shut?” she said. She thought I was an idiot. I could tell. “It’s open.” (Duh). I responded a little annoyed that she thought I was so dimwitted. “Yep, that happens. You gotta leave it shut and put the chemicals in otherwise the solids will dry out and clog the pipe. Then when you’re ready to go you open it and flush it out. I’ll get you a snake.” Ah, me.
I spent the next hour snaking out the solids from our black water tank and got it going again. We had great luck to have nice neighbors. Another neighbor gave us two sacks that looked like dishwasher pods on steroids. He told us to drop them into the tank and add water. They break down all the solids so it all flushes out in liquid form (sorry). Anyway, nice neighbors that let us borrow coffee filters, lighter fluid, poop pods, the snake, etc. The proprietor of the property on the other hand was ready to rip the stupid liberal mask right off my face though when I went grab some wood from the lodge. I’m assuming she was Dr Fauci’s estranged sister the way she passed out advise on mask usage. She assured me that the mask was unnecessary as the air was clean up in the mountains. She also alerted me of the potential health risks associated with wearing the mask including significant CO2 intake. The more she talked the more I wanted to tighten the shit out of my mask and back slowly away.
Once the toilet flowed, my spirits rose. That didn’t change the fact that we had a massive list of defects and missing features that needed to be addressed for the next release of this camper. I always loved the Quality Assurance teams that I’ve worked with in the past. They possess something that I’ve never had. Patience. So to them and to Sarah, my family, my friends, and pretty much everyone else in the world, I’ll say it now and I’m sure I’ll say it again…
You were right. I was wrong. I love you. Power to the people.
Chris
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