Sunday morning, the last day of our anniversary weekend. The sun came out and while not warm, it is considerably more comfortable than yesterday outside. Dave and I have a nice leisurely breakfast then break down camp. And by break down camp, I mean pack up the pretty dishes, put the coffee maker in the cabinet, unplug, and attach the RV to the Excursion.
We decided to go ahead and take the RV with us into canton. Surely there will be a place we can park our 500 foot long rig while we shop so we can head home straight from Canton. Once we get into town we decide to go to the old section of Canton. We’d never been over there before. We hear there were puppies. I like puppies. (Clarification, I like other people’s puppies. We were in no danger of being suckered into purchasing a puppy however, because I’ve spent a good portion of my adult life potty training, and I don’t ever want to do that again, with either child or beast.)
We pulled into a large parking lot where there seemed to be enough room for us. The lady taking the parking money came over and said we could not park there, but that there was an official place to park such long rigs like ours, it was down the road just a bit. We headed down the road just a bit. We looked over the parking area before we went in. It’s a good idea to do this when you are 500 feet long and weigh the equivalent of the Empire State Building. There were several other large vehicles in the parking lot. Mostly animal hauling trailers, but they’d made it, so surely we’d be fine. In we pulled. We pulled around to the side. We were almost in place. We just needed to back up a bit into the spot. Sir D put the Ex in reverse and the Ex did not go in reverse. It did not go anywhere. Dave pulled forward a bit and tried again. And again, spinning wheels. He pulled forward a little more, and then tried to back up. No go. Now we were almost flush up against the non removable posts. We could pull forward no further and going back was not working out so well.
We sat in stunned silence for a minute. You’ve GOT to be kidding. 3 trips to the pharmacy, a trip to the ER, a failed movie attempt, nasty mead, and now we’re STUCK? Of course. Of course we’re stuck. And with the RV attached. Did I mention we are 500 feet long and weigh the equivalent of the Empire State Building?
Dave, being the man of action that he is, got out of the car and began to firmly attach the tow strap to the back of the RV. And just the fact that I carry a tow strap in my car should tell you something.
I asked Dave what he planned to do now that he had a tow strap attached. He said that if we just stand here, tow strap attached and look stuck, some good ol’ Texas boys in a 4x4 will see the challenge and not be able to resist.
It was good in theory. The thing is, there were many things a mere 50 feet away, on the other side of the street to distract the good ol’ Texas boys from our plight. As we stood there looking helpless, we listened to the sounds of ducks, and chickens, and roosters and goats and who knows what else. We had also begun to attract a little attention from across the street with all the tire spinning and we had quite an audience watching to see what we were going to do next.
Finally, Dave started stopping 4x4 trucks passing by. Finally he stopped a truck with 3 guys in it. 2 tubby Hispanic guys with cowboy hats and boots, and one tall skinny white guy with a mullet. It was the stuff of sitcoms. They were up to the towing throw-down. They attached the tow strap to the front of their truck, Mullet Man spit out his chew and hopped in the truck to get down to business. The two Mexican Cowboys positioned themselves on either side to guide Dave. I sat in the Ex and looked at all the spectators. People were beginning to pull up lawn chairs and pass out snacks. The sounds of farm animals and men hawking tools and buck knives was almost drown out buy the sound of spinning tires.
We were not getting anywhere. The Three Stooges conferred. Finally Mullet Man came over and said he knew a guy who was working maintenance, and he’d get him to just pop on over here in his front end loader and pull us right on out.
Okay.
We waited for the tractor. The sound of puppies yipping and roosters crowing once again ruled the day as we sat and waited.
The tractor pulled up and once again all eyes were on the idiots with the RV. This time, I got out of the car to watch so I could notify Dave, via the Walkie Talkie if anything was going amiss.
The Old Mexican guy in the Tractor got right down to business. He attached the tow strap to the front of the tractor bucket and with one yank, pulled the RV and the EX out of the mud. There was such power in that tractor that the Ex was fish tailing all around as he pulled the RV backward. I stood in horrified silence waiting for the whole thing to come apart, fall over, or simply disintegrate before my eyes. This was how every winning video on America’s Funniest Videos began. There was NO WAY this was going to end well.
Tractor Man hopped out, unhooked the tow strap from the back, came around to the front of the EX and hooked it up the tow strap to the front this time. He drove his tractor around to the front, hooked up and with the same complete lack of finesse, drug my poor EX like a ragdoll around to the dry side of the parking lot, leaving her sitting ever so pristinely, and NOT stuck, in a parking spot. He then unhooked the tow strap and drove off in his tractor, like some modern day, Construction Zorro. I believe at this point there was clapping, cheering, and people paying up on bets. Or maybe that was my imagination.
What I can tell you is that once we finally got into the Canton Trade Days, there was much pointing and snickering as we walked by.
In hindsight I realize that we should have charged admission for bringing the days entertainment.
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