CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?

This new relationship of mine has begun badly.  Very badly.  I would have ended it after a few weeks but I was stuck.  

I had gone online and pored over each picture, comparing looks and descriptions, and finally found what looked like The One.  A meeting was set up.  No, not a man found on a dating website;  it was my new little Scamp trailer, found on an RV website.  

It arrived three weeks ago, driven here to my house in Arizona from the factory in Minnesota.  I waited for it with bated breath – I hadn’t yet seen one in the flesh, this was truly a blind date, though I had studied it on YouTube videos.  Our first meeting was not auspicious.  And what followed just got worse and worse.

The man who drove it here parked it where I pointed, under the oak tree, jumped out of his truck, gave me a quick go-around showing me where everything is, jumped back into his truck and drove away.  I was left standing dazed, watching as he disappeared down my driveway. 

I turned to look at the Great White Thing.  Good lord!   What had I gotten myself into?  I walked slowly around it in wonderment.  So many electrical and water hose openings, valves, and little flaps.   Even the propane tank and battery looked challenging to me.  I’ve never had ownership responsibility for anything like this before, and my knowledge of mechanical things is almost nil.  It made me feel small and intimidated. I stepped inside it.  Ah!  Perfect!  Light and airy and welcoming!  And only one mysterious object, an electrical panel of some sort.  Everything else seemed straightforward and understandable.  I can grow to love this, the inside anyway, I said to myself.  

It wasn’t until the next day that I got up my nerve to back up the car to it.  It was surprisingly easy to get the hitch lined up with the coupler, even though I was doing it alone.  I plugged in the electrical cord and ran to the back to check the turn-signal lights:  nothing.  No amount of replugging made that baby work.  Something was wrong.  I drove my car back down to the UHaul in Tucson where the hitch had been installed, but they said they didn’t see any problems.  Back home I called a friend who has a gizmo for checking these things, and he insisted that the problem was in the UHaul plug, not the trailer.  Back down to UHaul again (25 miles each way) where they again said there was no problem, but this time they didn’t smile at me or even say “have a nice day” when I left.  (Actually, I’m so sick of hearing that expression that I often mutter under my breath “I’ll have whatever frickin’ kind of day I damn please”).  

Back home I called our resident genius mechanic, Peter.  He has become the couples’ therapist for me and the Scamp.  While I waited the three days for him to be able to come I practiced hitching up and unhitching, and because the back lights didn’t work I practiced backing it up right in the little parking area outside my house.  That small space was an excellent place to learn some difficult maneuvers.     

It took Peter three hours to undo whatever had been mis-done.  And then he noticed that UHaul, on top of all its other misdeeds, had not installed an electric brake regulator.   One more trip to them, during which they couldn’t even look at me, and even sent me off without the instruction manual.  Thank god for google.

When Peter and I took a trial run to check the lights and everything else, the Scamp came off the ball of the hitch and the coupler jack hit the ground hard and got smashed.  Luckily, Peter was able to get it all working again, and showed me exactly how to lock that hitch onto the coupler so it won’t ever come off.  

A few days later I realized I’d better get down to the Motor Vehicle Department and get a license plate and pay the taxes.  When I got home I tried to put the license on the little brackets in back but couldn’t get the screws in.  Peter was also unable to do it, even after trying a number of different screws.  A few days later he came back with some super special screws that finally worked.  Good lord.  

I was feeling no love for the Scamp by now, in fact I was good and ready to break up with it and send it back to Minnesota.  My instant pop-up ex was looking really good, I was ready to resume tent camping.  I was definitely not having that joyous falling-in-love racing-hormones experience with the Scamp.  It and I started out immediately in that later phase, the one during which I suddenly discover that there are ways in which The Other is not perfect after all but has some serious differences from me, and it may require a great deal of work to find compromises.  I can only hope that the falling-in-love phase is yet to come.  

I was beginning to feel hopeful after all those troubles, but when I stopped to buy gas for my brand new Subaru Outback the little door to the gas cap would not open.  And this was the second time that had happened in just two months. This felt like the last straw, though it turned out not to be, and I just about gave up and joined an Amish community.  Luckily I still had enough gas to drive back down to Tucson, this time to the Subaru people.  It took two of them seven minutes to get it open.  Even though it had now happened twice, they were dismissive of my fears:  “Oh don’t worry, it probably won’t happen again.”   I insisted on making an appointment to have it fixed, for good, and after they worked on it for an hour it supposedly will never happen again. 

Throughout all this I planned my trip, and started getting packed up.  I had to figure out a whole new way to distribute all the food, clothes, books, and gear between the car and the Scamp, it’s all so different from the old easy days with just my Prius and tent.   I spent a teary afternoon, nostalgic for those easy days, and I realized that what I was doing was finally mourning for that time which is now over, ended, never to be again.  No more Tent Soloist.  

I was almost ready to get going, I was even allowing myself to get a little excited.   A friend suggested I’d better check to make sure the refrigerator works before I leave, so I tried to turn it on with the propane.  It works fine with electricity, but not with the propane.  Aaargh.  I’ve put in what I hope is the last call to Peter, but what are the chances?   

Will the Scamp and I ever roll down the open road together, smiling at each other through the rear-view mirror?