Ever have one of those days where everything seems to be just wrong?

A couple of Saturdays ago, I scheduled a work detail that included two other workers and me. Our goal was to clear the building site of the myriad of small trees, vines, and general brush. I had reserved a chipper so we could turn the branches, vines, and smaller trees into mulch. Very cool. Very green.

(Ever wonder how much CO2 is generated by a 4 cycle gas motor that a chipper uses? Does it really reduce CO2 as compared with just burning the trees? What impact does the engine exhaust have compared with the fire’s smoke? Don’t forget the gas required to drive my pick up truck to fetch and retrieve the chipper. Face it, we just can’t get away from generating CO2.)

Worker one showed up about 9:00 and I got him started. I left to drive to Griffin to get the chipper. I had reserved the machine on the internet Thursday and I even called the number on the reservation email to confirm it the next morning. The young lady said she had it and would see me “tomorrow”. So, off to Griffin.

Walked into the rental place about 10:00. Gave my name and asked for my chipper. The man behind the counter looked it up and said, “yes we have your unit” (“Good!” thought I) “but it is in Newnan.”

“Newnan?” I quered, “how far is it?”

“28 miles but we can have them bring it here if you want to wait. I have a driver coming back from that location. He would be here about noon.”

Man, I couldn’t believe it. There was no obvious menton of a second location. No one had mentioned two locations. The confirmation email did not say anything about Newnan.

“I called the number on the email and the lady said she had it,” I weakly objected.

“Yes sir. You called the Newnan number,” the man behind the counter offered. “She said she is expecting you.”

Doggone it, another 50 miles, minimum to drive. Helper one will run out of work and I am paying him by the hour. Helper two will show up soon and go on the clock and I will be driving all over central Georgia.

Biting my tongue and swallowing my loses (and pride) I told the man I would drive to Newnan to get it. He gave me directions. They were moderately simple but I wrote them down. Can’t rely too heavily on the memory these days…

Pleasant drive to Newnan. Moderate traffic. Sometimes these country roads are very heavily travelled. Surprises me. Got to location two and they did have the chipper. It was on its own little trailor and they hooked it up. Pleased that I had had the foresight to buy a hitch, I admired the setup.

Remembering an event of my youth (see postsript if you are interested) I asked if the lights worked on the trailer. They said “no”, that I did not have the right adapter to go from a round 9 pin femail (truck) to a four pin in-line (trailer). A little annoyed that they would let me drive off with an illegal vehicle, I asked where I could get one. “Any auto parts store” they said.

I pulled out of their lot with the trailer. With the trailer hitched to the extra long pickup truck, my vehicle was about 50 feet long and took forever to do a u-turn and I needed to do a u-turn because of one of those stupid 4 lane, divided highways. So I went to the left turn lane, waited for the light and did my u-turn. As I headed back up the highway, passing the rental store on the left, I saw an auto parts store!

Yeah. Wait, it is on the left. Wait, wait, it is RIGHT NEXT TO THE RENTAL STORE! Why didn’t the nimrods tell me “go next door. You can walk. Leave the rig here. Fix it here. We’ll help.”?

Not wanting to, and suspecting my inability to, turn around, I pulled into a shopping center and parked on the side of one of the main entry drives. I then took my life into my hands as I dashed across the busy four lane highway to get my adapter. Adapter purchased, not quite sure it was the right one, I darted back across the highway. Plugged the adapter in. Everything fit. So far so good.

I got into the cab, turned on the left turn blinker, went behind the rig to check the light – nothing! Grrr. Not wanting to rerun the four lane gauntlet, I did what every man hates to do.

I read the instructions.

The adapter had four little LEDs on it and when I checked them, I saw that I did have current. I now turned on the driving lights instead of the left turn signal and the trailer lights did come on. Yeah. Now I am off and it is getting late. (By the way, I found out later that the light on the trailer was burned out and that is why it didn’t work. Just one of those days.)

Following directions backwards is strange. The left is now a right. The distances are hard to remember because everything looks unfamiliar coming from the opposite direction. Plus I had the additional pressure of knowing that I could not easily turn around.

Made pretty good progress with one wrong turn. Recognized my error within a mile and only had to drive another three to find a wide space in the road in which to do my u-turn. I had tried earlier to pull into a driveway and back out but the trailer seemed to have a mind of its own. Didn’t matter how you turned the wheel, it was uncooperative. Hence the need for a very wide spot in the road and a good four wheel drive truck.

Looking at my watch. Looking at my watch again. Thinking about the guys wondering about me. Remembering I needed to get lunch. How much farther, how much longer?

My return was the same up to a point since it was closer not to go back to Griffin but to take another route. Got on the route fine, GA85 and GA74 headed south. Now I knew that 74 went to my little town so I was set. Just keep on 74 and I would arrive in about 25 minutes. Lovely drive, rolling hills. The solitude (forget getting a radio signal even if you want one) gave me the opportunity to study the closed gas stations, small stores and general economic malaise. At one intersection. a lady was setting up a roadside stand. Admiring her tenacity and the indomitability of the American spirit, I drove on.

Traffic was lighter. Checked for road signs to make sure I was still okay. I hadn’t turned so I should be good. Drove all the way to the lovely, small town of Manchester. A high school girl standing in the intersection invited me to her church’s cook-out. “Its a fund raiser” she added with a shout as I drove by. Smiling and shaking my head no, I continued up the hill. Finally, a road sign – GA85. No longer listing 74. Not good. Here comes another sign – “Warm Springs, 5 miles”. Okay, now I know I am lost. Warm Springs? Looking again for a place to turn around and finding one eventually, I headed back to town.

Same young lady yelled a me again although I am not quite sure I heard her, something about “weren’t you just here?”. Had to retrace my errant trip of 10 miles back to 74 for a total extra drive of 20 miles. Turns out that 74 turned left at the intersection where the road side stand was. So, back on 74 headed home.

Drove across the Flint river, past the hospital and into town. Thinking about lunch I realized I needed cash for lunch and to pay the crew. Pulling up to the ATM at the bank, I saw that I could not drive under it with my attached chipper. Checked my watch. Again. Now it is past 12:00! So I park the truck in the parking lot and walk up to the drive up ATM. Always a bit of an awkward situation. Got cash and got out.

Now on to get food. I stopped at the grocery store to get some baked beans, buns and drinks. Then I drove to the barbeque shack I had noticed in town called Hog Heaven. Finally, I am almost done!

One of my crew members is a Messianic Jew. (These are Jews who accept Christ as the Messiah of the Old Testament.) Not knowing if he was observant of the dietary laws, I asked the fellow taking the order if they had any sliced barbeque beef in addition to pork. He said “no sir.” Okay, I said, I’ll take shredded beef. “We don’t have any of that either,” he said. Clerk #2 volunteered “We’ve got hamburgers. Everyone says they are really good and we should call this place Hamburger Heaven.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I was looking for barbeque but that I had a friend who was Jewish and they don’t eat pork.”

“They don’t eat pork?” clerk #1 asked rather incredulously.

“No,” I said “they don’t eat anything with cloven hooves.”

Clerk #2 said “All our pork comes from the shoulder.”

???

“No,” I explained, “they don’t eat anything from the pig. What else do you have?”

“We have Nathan’s hot dogs. They are all beef.” clerk #1 said.

“Okay, I’ll take 4,” thinking about 1 each with an extra to be split, “with a side order of slaw. To go.” Reaching for my wallet to pay, I realize I left it in the truck. Sigh. Since the truck and shredder were so long, I had to park up the street in a vacant lot. Tredging up there in the ever increasing heat, I opened the truck, pulled out my walled and walked back to Hog Heaven.

Walking in and opening my wallet to pay, I see that my debit card is missing. Nuts! Must have walked off from the ATM with the card still in it. Reaching for another credit card, I pay and wonder why my order is not ready yet. Hot dogs floating in water should be pretty quick.

“You want us to cook them, don’t you?” clerk #1 asked. “I am in a bit of a hurry is all, ” I respond. Standing there watching them prepare the order, Clerk #2 starts to put slaw on the first dog. “Stop” I say in my loud and commanding voice. “I wanted a side of slaw, not 4 slaw dogs.”

“Oh, okay. My mistake.” He started to toss the offending dog so I said “Stop! I’ll take that one, just fix the others so I can go.”

12:45.

Reach the farm at 1:00. Net gain – shredder, food, appreciation for maps. Net loss – two hours of time, one debit card.

Truly a strange morning.

Frank

PS – I went to high school in Ohio and a good friend was Larry J. After graduation, my parents (I was in college) moved to Dallas Texas so that is where I spent my summers. Somehow I connected with Larry who was also spending the summer with his brother. His brother was a single, cool guy who had a very nice little ski boat that he, wisely or not, allowed Larry to use.

One day we arranged a ski trip to the nearby lake. The only problem was Larry’s old pickup truck. It had cabling for external trailers but something did not work. As hard as we tried, we could not get the boat trailer’s lights to work. So we did what any self respecting college male would do, we went anyway.

Going wasn’t too bad as it was light but coming back was dusk and we new that we would be much more noticeable without lights at night. So it was a bit of a race against the sunset but it was getting pretty dark. As we got closer to Larry’s brother’s house, Larry decided to get off the main road and take a back road to the house. Less likely to be seen was the logic.

Siren and flashing lights almost immediately. Larry pulled over. We got out. Larry was shirtless (no A/C in the beat up truck) and I had a pair of wet cut off jeans on. We stood by the side of the truck while the lights were flashing. Neighbors moved out onto their porches to watch the scene while the policeman checked the computer for stolen boats.

Of course, Larry explained his story but without the registration, it was not totally convincing. Finally, the policeman gave Larry a ticket for driving without lights but didn’t detain us further. He said that since we were both in wet clothes, our story had some necessary credibility.

I promised myself that I would never drive a trailer without the lights working correctly.