STOWING: MY WAY

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"Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self"
--- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), Pastor

I’ve heard that every once in a while, it’s therapeutic to share something embarrassing about yourself… it’s supposed to help you maintain a healthy perspective, keep you from getting too arrogant, prevent you from taking yourself too seriously, and other touchy-feely things like that. But personally, to get that kind of therapy, I don’t need to share stories that show I’m playing checkers on life’s Parcheesi board. Folks don’t need past illustrations of my lack of decorum or common sense when every day I’m out there painting new masterpieces.

And let’s face it, even if I never shared my less-than-shining moments, I have a wife, two sons, and a very close friend who encounter me day-to-day and are more than willing to take up the slack, sometimes sharing the same stories over and over again, adding embellishments each time, until what started out as a slightly amusing anecdote about one of my minor mishaps becomes the stuff of legend. So occasionally, I do need to share one of these stories myself to bring it down a notch and set the record straight.

The following story is a good example. Sue, Ben and Sam love to share this with family, friends, people in the check-out line, and the folks who show up at the local town-hall meetings. So strictly in the interests of accuracy, let me tell you the real story. It won’t stop my family from gleefully sharing my capability for astounding acts of cluelessness (which is hardly news), but perhaps you’ll gain a greater understanding of the thought processes that prompt my behavior. Just ignore all those warnings about staring into the abyss.

This is also a cautionary tale told in the public interest.  If even one family, after hearing this story, can avoid repeating the same mistakes I made... well, frankly, it won't make much difference to me, unless I happen to be traveling with them. And, ironically, once they hear this story, it's highly unlikely that anyone would make that particular travel arrangement.

This happened during one of our family camping trips. Sadly, we don’t do this much anymore… it’s hard to get schedules to coincide now that my sons are grown, and after years of vacations spent where the accommodations consisted of a tent, cot, and a bathroom located just over the hill, Sue has decided that Hilton pitches a better camp site. But back in the day, our family would pack up a Ford Aerostar minivan and head for the so-so outdoors (we lowered our outdoors requirement from "great" after the second or third disappointment).  We didn’t take planes to resort areas; we didn’t stay in hotels with pools and arcades; we camped.  There are good reasons for camping.  It's refreshing to get outdoors and enjoy the natural beauty this great nation has to offer.  It's a wonderful opportunity to become a closer-knit family by huddling around a campfire.  And, mainly, it's a lot cheaper to live in a tent and eat baloney for a week than to fork over your home equity to Disneyworld.

Like all families who choose to test the strength of their relationship in this manner, we always faced the classic "stuff" problem: where do we put all our stuff? Sue always displayed an incredible knowledge of spatial relationships and quantum physics as she packed our Aerostar with sleeping bags, tent, ice chest, lantern, camp stove, luggage, cookware, toiletries, junk food, and, space permitting, dependents.  It was the kids, Ben and Sam, in their formative years, that presented an ever-increasing problem from year to year. In spite of my efforts to encourage their use of tobacco, caffeine, and other growth-stunting substances, they continued to get progressively larger.

While planning for this particular trip, we knew we had finally surpassed the maximum cargo-to-passenger ratio.  There was no way we were going to load in our supplies without having the two boys stick soda straws out the windows for air.  It was time to adopt an Alternate Storage Strategy, a plan whose acronym I should have considered more carefully.

As soon as we accepted the fact that a portion of our cargo would have to go someplace other than the inside of our vehicle, the solution seemed obvious.  But after examining the cost, we abandoned the idea of FedExing our supplies to each successive campsite.  Instead, we went to Plan B: rooftop storage.

At first I was discouraged.  Although there was plenty of room on the rooftop luggage rack for the the kids, it was nearly impossible to keep them still long enough to strap them down.  My neighbor, seeing my difficulty, suggested I forego the straps, but I pointed out that only the most irresponsible of parents would let their children ride up top without some sort of safety restraints.  That's when he pointed out that some of the less-progressive states might restrict children to the inside of a moving vehicle.  I thought I was defeated until Sue came outside and, after regaining consciousness, suggested the next-best scenario: putting our supplies up top.

I thought it would be easy; just throw the tent, sleeping bags, and luggage up on the rack and secure them with bungee cords (I have a vast arsenal of bungee cords and I'm not afraid to use them).  However, as I began to do precisely that, Sue was prompted to share with me, for the first time in two decades of marriage, that she harbors an unreasoning fear deep down in her bosom.  Clinically, it is known as Bloomers Visibility Denial Syndrome (BVDS)... a profound fear of exposing one's laundry to the elements.  This condition has spawned an entire automatic dryer industry, which continues to profit from the misery of BVDS sufferers.

To Sue, it was unthinkable to strap our unprotected luggage on top of our van.  The risk, no matter how unlikely, of an insidious air current unfastening our bags and distributing her undergarments along the interstate and against strange windshields...well, "cold sweat" doesn't begin to describe her reaction to the possibility.

I had tossed the boys back onto the luggage rack before she made it clear that the alternative she had in mind was a rooftop carrier.

At this point in the narrative, it would be a good time to explain (to those in the audience that have never had the desire to give their vehicle the aerodynamics of a brick), that a rooftop carrier is a rectangular fiberglass compartment that can be "secured" (a loosely-used term, I've discovered) to the top of your car.  It consists of two halves (a bottom and top), and is hinged on one side for easy opening by any NBA player.  Your belongings can be stashed inside and protected from the elements and the prying eyes of any nosey truck driver looking down from on high.

So now, on the afternoon before our intended departure, I had to purchase and install a rooftop carrier.  But I still didn't see anything to worry about (Warning Sign #1).  After all, it was just a simple fiberglass shell that straps to the top of a car.  How much trouble could it be?   

I'm sure the architects of Obamacare asked themselves the same question.

In the small town of Tehachapi where we were currently living, there was only one place to buy such an item: the local super-mega-giant-discount-retailer.  Although there are quite a few competitors in this retailing category, all have a few things in common.  Federal law demands that they all have names ending in the word "Mart".  And no one remotely resembling Mom or Pop runs one.

I drove through the abandoned downtown area and into the gigantic parking lot, parked my car, and hailed a cab to get me to the entrance.  (By the way, have you noticed that people in wheelchairs always manage to find the good parking spots?)  Then I was through the front doors and being greeted by a senior employee who offered me a shopping cart.  At least I thought he did; it wasn't until I took it that I realized he was using it for support.  I left the area quickly and discreetly; if the other employees were as helpful as he was, he'd be picked up in no time.

When I got to the auto supply section, it still seemed like a piece of cake.  There were different sizes of carriers to choose from, but all except the smallest had cautionary labels saying they could only be taken on highways with no overpasses or low flying aircraft, so my choice was simple: I opted for the smallest.  On the box was the message, "mounting brackets included. Consult your merchant's application manual."

Still no problem, I thought.  The auto supply section was lousy with application books, those dog-eared, grease-smeared volumes that hang by a chain from the shelves and purport to tell you what size product goes with your particular car model.  So I started leafing through the first book.

Thirty minutes later, I could have told you what our van required in the way of oil filters, air filters, distributors, batteries, floor mats, tires, seat covers, light bulbs, fuzzy dice, and air fresheners.  But no luck on rooftop carriers.  Just then, though, I spotted an intrepid sales clerk who had bravely ventured this far into the recesses of the store, enabling me to flag him down personally instead of using one of the nearby flare guns provided for customer convenience.

 He was very helpful.  He assured me that no more research was needed.  Shucks, he said (Warning Sign #2), those rooftop carrier gizmos just strap on top of your car.  No book learnin' required for that. And could I tell him where housewares was located?

So I bought it.  It came in a box that was half the size of the actual carrier, so I knew that, unless it expanded upon contact with air, there would be some assembly required, presumably to attach the top and bottom halves.  And how much trouble could that be?

I'm sure that pesky chunk of ice prompted the same question from the captain of the Titanic.

When I got home and opened the box on my driveway, I discovered Warning Sign #3.  Nestled in one of the fiberglass shells was a sack of hardware that could have held together the USS Enterprise.  I immediately started sorting through this amazing collection of nuts, bolts, screws, washers, hinges, handles, brackets, grommets, flanges, rivets and other exotic examples of metal tooling, so it took me a minute to notice that Sue, who was perusing the assembly instructions, had turned ghostly pale.

I took the instructions from her before her case of the vapors got any more pronounced. What I was holding in my hand resembled nothing less than the technical plans to the Death Star.  It was obvious that absolutely no pre-assembly had occurred here; the list of components consisted of a periodic table of the elements.

Ideally, it would take me and the Army Corps of Engineers to put this thing together, but all I had for help was my wife, and I would have lost her if I hadn't lied by telling her that it wasn't as complicated as it looked.  She saved our marriage by pretending to believe me, and we spent the next three hours trying every permutation of the supplied parts.  Let me tell you, no one should have to experience twice in one year the misery of Christmas Eve toy assembly.

When we finally produced something that looked like the illustration, we opened a bottle of champagne and toasted each other by the light of the burning instructions.  All we had in front of us, besides the completed carrier, was a bag full of mounting brackets and the empty box.  I lifted the box to set it with the rest of the garbage, and noticed one small slip of paper float out of the box and settle on the ground.

 I expected it to say something like, "Inspected by Chimpanzee # 57."  Instead, it was an applications chart, showing which configuration of enclosed brackets would work for designated vehicle models.  The Aerostar, being alphabetically advantaged, was near the top of the list.  And next to it, destined to take the place of "Jerry Springer", were the two most chilling words I have ever seen:

"NO FIT."

Laughing hysterically would have taken more energy than either of us could muster. All we could do was sit down on the pavement next to our misfit carrier and explore our options.  Double suicide was ruled out, since we hadn't lined up a sitter.  Sue suggested returning it for a refund, an idea I vetoed for a number of good reasons.

Reason #1: the same male hormone that prevents me from asking directions when I'm lost would never let me admit to a perfect stranger that I had entirely assembled something without knowing if it would fit on my vehicle. 
Reason #2: fully assembled, the carrier would no longer fit inside my van, so the only way I could return it was to put it on the roof, which I couldn't do because it was a "no fit", which was the reason I was returning it, which... well as you can see, that way lay madness.
And Reason #3: I would not admit defeat to the evil empire that had manufactured this insidious device for the express purpose of squashing my American spirit.  No; by all that was holy, I would make this work.

My wife, sensing that I was about to start humming the Star Spangled Banner, fled to the house.  With my renewed sense of purpose, I single-handedly set the carrier on my rooftop luggage rack, and then went to the garage and unlocked my trunk of bungee cords.

As my family well knows, I place great stock in bungee cords, otherwise known as elastic tie-downs. Their creation has forever freed me from the necessity of tying knots that, no matter how intricate I've intended to make them, always come undone at the slightest provocation.  I am convinced that, with the right combination and application of this marvelous elastic product, I can restrain the earth from rotating on its axis.  And in my modest trunk, in a humble garage in a small American town, there existed the foremost collection of bungee cords known to Man.  This historic night, I would dedicate them all toward a single task: to subdue an untamed rooftop carrier.

I constructed an intricate web of bungee cords, anchored in a dozen places, creating a delicate balance of tension that was sure to resist any force bent on removing the carrier from its perch.  A tornado could descend and whisk my van off to Oz; but when it set down, the carrier would still be attached.

Sue, who had finally mustered the courage to come out and view the finished project, still needed some reassurance that her luggage was not going to make an escape attempt once the van was in motion.  So that night, on the eve our vacation, I conducted a trial run.  I drove out on the freeway at high speed. I drove in the backwash of semi trucks. I made sharp turns. I drove on dirt roads.  I did everything but play Foggy Mountain Breakdown on the stereo.

The carrier passed with flying colors. During the test, it didn't shake, rattle, or roll.  When I returned home and examined it, it had not shifted a micron from its original position. I was vindicated, victorious.  The rays of the rising sun greeted me as I stood there, triumphant and proud, knowing that it was men like me that had conquered Everest and invented Velcro.

Warning Sign #4.

That morning, we commenced our journey.  For the first time in years, Sam and Ben had enough room in the van to flail at each other.  Every few seconds, Sue would glance nervously at the side mirrors, trying to see if our carrier was about to go airborne, and every few seconds I would lovingly scoff at her.  All was right with the world.

What happened next happened in the space of a few seconds, but every detail is indelibly etched in my brain, probably obliterating some other more important memory.

There was an unearthly sound from the top of the van, something akin to the ripping of the space-time continuum.  The front wheels of the van seemed to levitate slightly from the ground.  Sue’s fingers found their way through my flesh and straight to the bone as she gripped my arm and stared at the rear-view mirror.  I followed her stare just in time to see the carrier, still fully intact, make a solid landing on the highway behind us, amid a cloud of dust and bungee cords.

Later, local papers would report how nearby radar stations had briefly encountered a strange blip on their screens, matching no know aircraft signature.  This incident would remain an open X-file.

I immediately negotiated a tight U-turn and made my way back to the landing site. Fortunately, there was no traffic on the highway in either direction, and so there was no unfortunate motorist present to wonder what piece of the Hubbell telescope had found its way onto his car.

I quickly pulled the carrier to the shoulder and inspected it.  Aside from a minor dent, the carrier and its contents were remarkably undamaged.  Except for the first-stage separation, it had fulfilled its promise of keeping my wife’s undergarments hermetically sealed.  Freed of that concern, I was now left to ponder my next course of action.

Well, what choice did I have, really? Enlisting the help of my sons, I put this gravity-defying jet-pack wannabe back on top of the van and secured it as best I could with the remains of my valiant bungee cords.  Then I proceeded down the highway at a prudent speed (about one rpm above idle).  We inched our way into the next small town, whose city limit sign happened to be at the entrance to the parking lot of another super-mega-giant-discount-retailer.  So we parked and hired a local guide to take us to the front doors.

Of course, it was too late to return a rooftop carrier which had clocked as many air-miles as ours.  Our purpose now was to find something more reliable to secure our restless container. While we were browsing through the restraint section, Sue idly picked up a package of bungee cords and read these instructions (only Sue would read the instructions for a product that consists of a rubberband with a hook on each end): 

"Do not use to secure any object which may be exposed to an updraft."

To her credit, she exercised the same degree of restraint and discretion that I would have if our roles had been reversed, which is to say those instructions were quoted to me hourly for the rest of our vacation.

At any rate, we eventually found some sturdy, seatbelt-like straps with a ratchet mechanism that soon proved to be the solution to our levitating luggage problem.  These straps have since found a place in my heart formerly occupied by bungee cords.  You can be assured that, if I ever have the desire to experience the thrill of jumping from a high place, these straps will be tied to my ankles instead of those unreliable elastic cords.

The rest of the trip was uneventful (except for the Case of the Missing Briquette, the fishing trip at the water treatment plant, and the locusts, all of which been dutifully recorded in the family history). But the rooftop carrier incident was a lesson that would prove very valuable to me, if I were inclined to learn from my mistakes.  As it is, the only thing I really took away from the experience was the realization that, anything I do in front of my children, I'm doomed to relive endlessly as they share the anecdote with anyone who will listen.

But now you, the humble reader, have an accurate history of the event to which you can refer, rather than relying on an oral tradition that elevates the incident to some mythical level of stupidity.  I’ve asked my family to study this in the hopes that maybe the next time they feel the need to tell this story, they’ll exercise a little restraint.

I'm kidding myself, aren't I?

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