Map Breath

When we left East Harbor State Park in Lakeside, OH, we thought we finally worked the bugs out of our GPS system and decided to give it the ultimate test: Could it guide us directly to the Wal–Mart at 5555 Porter Road in Niagara Falls, NY, where we planned to spend the night?

We agreed we would follow the GPS’ instructions to the letter, no matter what Mr. Rand McNally said (he’s a little anal for my tastes. Sometimes, too many lines on a map are just plain confusing, don’t ya think?). I programmed the GPS and all seemed to be going well, until just after we left Buffalo. We were traveling north on 290. The GPS offered no instructions, neither on its screen nor in its haughty, female voice, even though it seemed obvious to me and Rand that we would soon take I-90 north to Niagara Falls.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” I began. “I don’t understand what she wants us to do. If we keep going on this road, we’ll end up back in Buffalo. I think we need to take I-90.” As I studied the map, our route seemed even more obvious.

“I-90. I-90. Definitely, I-90,” I instructed the Captain.

“You’re sure, Number Two?” he asked. By now, we had divvied up the duties on board with military efficiency. When the bus was in motion, Tim was Captain. I was his Yeoman and if he wanted coffee or a snack, I snapped to and got it for him. When we were stopped, however, things changed a wee bit, reverting to their natural state; Tim did the laundry and dishes, was free to tackle any Project Nerd duties as he saw fit and also took on all quartermaster responsibilities, keeping our bays fully stocked. I, of course, shed the Yeoman role the second we were no longer in motion. Still in my pink DKNY track suit, I loaded up my fairy godmother, (which, I understand, some people mistakenly refer to as a “martini shaker”) and in a silvery flash or two, was instantly transformed back into a Princess. Each time we hit the road, however (mainly because my bus phobia was triggered by all the bumping and clinking noises) I made sure all our belongings were stowed and locked, and all doors securely shut. I also took on the additional responsibility of bursar, dolling out the money whenever we encountered a toll booth (“Can’t you drive the bus in straighter than that so they can’t see we’re towing a car? It’s two dollars an axel!”) Lastly, and most unfortunately for us both, I had also been pressed into service as navigator.

“Why in the world do you want me to be navigator?” I had asked. “I have no sense of direction and I can’t read a map.”

“True,” Tim sighed. “But, who else is going to do it? Miles?” We both glanced at the poodle, considering. Even the fact that he was happily, if sloppily, gumming Morty’s head, didn’t seem to completely rule out the possibility. Still, ultimately we knew there was really no other way. I had to be navigator. Lord help us.

Now, barreling toward Niagara Falls with a persnickety GPS system to boot, I had to determine what to do. Soon, there would be no turning back. Not for a 40 foot Prevost dragging a Jeep.

“Yes. I-90. I’m sure. I just don’t get what she thinks we should do.” When we came to the point of no return, though, it became obvious; I-90 split off from 290 to the right. Tim easily made the adjustment. Still, in past such situations, Map Breath, as we had started calling her, had instructed, “Bear right.” This time, she was silent.

“She screwed up,” I said.

“No,” Tim mused. “It must be the map program she got that malfunctioned.” I gave him a sideways glance. Then, suddenly recalled I had programmed Map Breath myself with a man’s voice, specifically to keep the Lying Bitch company, hoping the promise of some libidinal satisfaction might get her to start telling the truth about our tanks. Somewhere though, in South Dakota it seemed, Map Breath had undergone a sex change. And, I hadn’t been the one to perform the procedure.

When we finally pulled into Chez Sam, Map Breath intoned in that smug way she has, “Destination.” I retorted, “Oh, so now you have something to say.” But, Tim was quick to point out, and rather excitedly, I might add, “She did get us here. Exactly to our destination!” Now, I finally understood what was going on.

“Why do you always take her side?” I demanded.

“What are you talking about?” he replied. But, I could sense the truth under his flimsy protestation.

“You… you’re in love with her!” I sputtered.

“What??? I am not in…”

“Oh, yes you are. I bet you want to leave me for her!”

“I’m not even attracted to her,” he insisted. “Although, if I did leave you for her, you’d never be able to find me,” he snickered. I was not amused.

“Why do you always listen to her and not me?” I queried, quite reasonably, I thought.

“I guess that is hard to explain, what with your stellar navigational skills.” I guess I deserved that. Only a few hours before, Tim had asked me to consult Rand to see how far we were from Buffalo. Reading all those little numbers along all the superfluous squiggly lines was blinding. Besides, I’m not a math wiz. Instead, I found the “distance scale” and determined that 15 miles was about the size of a knuckle. Five knuckles later, I offered, “OK. 5 times 15 is 75. But, it was really a little less than a knuckle length, so… we could be anywhere from 40 to 75 miles from Buffalo.” Tim rolled his eyes. Just then, I spotted the “Mileage between cities” chart at the top of the page. Why hadn’t I noticed this before?

“Oops!” I chuckled.

“How much more is it?” he asked.

“Actually, we’re only 22 miles away. Guess knuckles aren’t the best way to measure.”

“Apparently not yours,” the Captain muttered under his breath.

Despite my poor math skills, my nonexistent sense of direction and my total inability to read a map, I might have had the occasional navigational success if I wasn’t also as concrete as a garage floor. Only the day before, when I tried to leave a Target, I was stumped at the door. It said, “ENTER ONLY” then on the next line “DO NOT ENTER.” Enter only, do not enter? What the hell does that mean? I tried to get through the door several times, but couldn’t. I might be there still if I hadn’t noticed a lady next to me exiting through hers, which simply said “EXIT.” I turned and followed her out. Back on the bus, I expressed my outrage to Tim.

“I mean, if it had said, ‘ENTRANCE ONLY, DO NOT ENTER’ that might have made sense.”

“You were exiting, sweetie.”

“Yes, but I was entering the little alcove thing to exit.”

“Whatever you say, dear.”

If Tim’s newfound infatuation with Map Breath were just another insult to my “navigational skills” as they were, I would have shrugged it off. But, I felt my very marriage at stake.

“You shouldn’t be listening to her,” I offered. “I’m your wife!”

“But, you can’t read a map!”

“You drafted me for this job. I didn’t enlist. You get what you pay for.”

When we finally got to the Falls that night, we stood among many other couples, all holding hands, some of whom should have also been on their cell phones arranging rooms. Tim commented he could appreciate Niagara’s beauty, but couldn’t see what the big romance was. I was livid.

“Well, maybe you’d find this more romantic with HER. After all, you two have so much in common, like that whole sense of direction thing.” He protested, “She doesn’t do anything for me.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why you hang on her every word.”

“You’re the one I love,” he asserted, as he bent down to kiss me. I pulled away.

“I don’t want you kissing me while you’re thinking of HER.” He tried to give me a reassuring look.

“If she’s so great, why don’t you try to get her to live in a bus with you for a year?” I challenged.

“Uh… that’s what she’s doing, honey.” Oh, yeah.
I’m over it, now. Really. Only… every now and then, upon making a wrong turn, I still delight in Map Breath’s befuddlement, as I watch the question mark linger on her screen while she recalculates her metallic little ass off.

To everyone clammoring for Miles to be President after the last posting: While he drools at the thought of that much power (well, actually, he drools at the thought of just about everything)I must sadly inform you that he has some, er... unsavory episodes in his past, as this picture illustrates. And, while beastiality might be forgiven by some of his constituency (since he is, after all, a beast) I'm afraid we all agree that gay beastiality simply cannot be tolerated, particularly as I can testify that Miles was not born that way, but rather, made the "lifestyle choice" once Morty entered our household. (As further proof of his depravity, you never see Miles that cozy with Shula.)

Mt. Poodle

Ever since seeing Hitchcock’s North by Northwest as a little girl, I have longed to go to Mt. Rushmore. Why it took nearly 40 years to get there, I haven’t a clue. But, now having seen it, I can be satisfied I did, and enjoy the rest of our stay in South Dakota. ('Nough said about that mountain.)

In nearby Keystone and even further north on Mt Rushmore Road, one really gets the feeling that while the mountain was being carved, everyone in the area racked their brains, trying to come up with some money making enterprise to capture the tourist dollars sure to be coming in. There’s really no choice but to surrender to the kitch, sigh at the signs full of superlatives (World’s largest catfish! World’s largest tin family! 51-foot Teddy Roosevelt!) and succumb to whatever calls you. For Tim and me, it was the President’s Alpine Slide, in which we took a chair lift to the top of a large hill and slid down 2000 ft to the bottom. If you don’t like speed, you can make the slide go as slow as you like. What you are absolutely, positively not allowed to do, however (and the plethora of signs along the way give ample, suitably dire warnings) is race each other down on the parallel tracks.

Tim won.

In Keystone, we had lunch on the veranda of a restaurant next door to the “cowboy comedy blah blah” show, as the rough-looking cowboy barker with a whip called it. He did his best to entice passersby, while occasionally accosting children with, “I’m your new babysitter, kid.”

I admit I was skeptical, but am so glad we didn’t skip the Crazy Horse Memorial, about an hour north of Custer. It’s less about what will eventually be the largest sculpture in the world and more about one man’s single-minded determination and willingness to sacrifice his life for, what even he acknowledges, is a small step toward righting a wrong.

I was not terribly impressed with the Badlands. I guess I’m not much for treeless, grassless, waterless views. Hopefully, you’ll understand, then, when I say that what I liked much more, was our visit to Walls Drug Store. If you can’t find it from anywhere within a fifty mile radius of the Badlands Park, you shouldn’t be driving, as obviously, you haven’t been paying attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if the local constabulary used ability to navigate to Walls as a sobriety check instead of a breathalyzer, as there are more signs pointing the way than there are barren vistas in Badlands Park. Tim and I thought we’d just stop in for a quick bite of their famous buffalo burgers, but ended up spending a few hours. It’s pure Americana at its glorious, corny best.

And, speaking of corny, many people make the pilgrimage to Mitchell, SD (a couple of hours east of Rapid) to see the Corn Palace. Can anyone tell me why? It’s an auditorium not so much made of corn, but rather decorated with it – bushels and bushels and bushels of it, with the occasional oats and prairie grass thrown in to break up (although one could argue, help cause further) monotony. The theme changes every September during Corn Palace Week, (complete with polka festival) and we were assured, “if you come back, you’ll never see the same mural again!” I can promise you, that won’t be an issue for us.

Really, if anyone can explain that whole Corn Palace thing to me, I’d appreciate it.

The Men of Vanture
(Calendar to follow)

Every Adventure’s Gotta Start Sometime…

On a sunny Tuesday morning in August, (in which I, nevertheless, detected a distinct chill in the air) we headed North to South Dakota, but not before some desperate pleading from me.

All the Vanture guys had been impressed with the chores they saw Tim do around the bus during the few days we were parked in their lot. They had even let him use some of the shop tools. For his part, Tim couldn’t be happier hanging with the guys, talking tools and shop and whatever it is guys talk about that they find oh, so important. Can styles of wrenches possibly hold the same fascination as styles of shoes? No man has ever said, “Did you see the new haute catool collection from Snap-On? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I liked it. But, it was kinda grunge, ya know? Hard-edged. I just don’t think it’s going to translate well to the average guy at Sears.” You would think I couldn’t wait to get out of there. But, no. I was still bus phobic. And, my phobia was starting to generalize, a fancy-schmancy shrink term that means I was starting to get bat shit crazy about anything that moved. So, I was perfectly happy to live in the Vanture lot for a year, and I knew both Tim and his alter ego Project Nerd would love it, too. To achieve my goal, I decided it was best not to show any weakness.

“Ah, Chris?” I ventured to the Vanture head. “Final offer. Tim and I live in your lot for a year and in exchange for free hook- ups, Tim works for you and I do evaluations on potential customers to judge compatibility.” This was a rather deft touch, if I do say so myself, as I knew Chris particularly hated working with difficult people. He gave me a big smile and immediately answered, “SOLD!”

“Hah!” I couldn’t help it. “I would’ve thrown in weekly group therapy for the entire shop!”

“Ouch.” He played along. “I knew I should never have accepted the first offer.”

But, the time for play was over. The time for starting our year long hell on earth, er, Prevost, was at hand. Before we hit the highway, Tim wanted to stop at a gas station a few blocks away that sold diesel fuel. He asked if, rather than hook the Jeep up at Vanture, I could just follow him…

“To South Dakota?” I ventured, hopefully.

“No,” he continued with a snort, “just to the station. It’ll be easier to hook up the Jeep there after we gas up.”

So, with one last picture of our home away from home (see above) and one last tearful (OK, OK, overwrought) farewell… we were off.

"Soon I'll be doing appeals on my silly husband" caption provided by Adriana Acosta who won the BHO caption contest by Ginny Vannare.

Diesel Nazi

What follows is complete fabrication, having no basis whatsoever in reality, any resemblance to persons living or working in Commerce City is your private little hallucination and you should get you head examined (but not by this writer, I don’t take hopeless cases). There. Now, maybe we have a prayer if we ever need another repair.

Deep in the heart of Denver, behind mass transit lines, toils a maniacal mechanic destined to go down in infamy. For, the esteem in which his skills at pressing metal and greasing pit are held are matched only by the fear of the fierce invective that flies from his mouth. He is… the Diesel Nazi.

After our meltdown cruise, we sojourned for a spell in scenic Commerce City, Colorado, home to our Vanture converters, for some much needed bus tweaking. Perhaps nothing required that tweaking more than our infamous door lock. To whom could we turn? Why, none other than the Diesel Nazi, of course.

We had never had run-ins with the DN; he had always been courteous to us. However, we had heard from many, many other people that he ran his shop with an iron fist, that he labored on his schedule, no one else’s, that he picked and chose what to work on and when to work on it, that everyone, EVERYONE he’d ever met, with the possible exception of his immediate family, were nothing but a bunch of boobs.

During the meltdown cruise, we had let Vanture know that we needed a replacement door lock. It was understood that the DN would do the work – who else could? But, the Vanture guys preferred dealing with him themselves, “we know how to handle DN,” they explained. Weeks went by and the part still hadn’t arrived from Prevost. Finally, our house rented, we had no choice but to live on the bus -- in the Vanture lot. I told Tim “we” needed to call the DN. He replied, “Why don’t you do it? He’s not as likely to be mean to a girl.” Even my husband who, in his line of work, has faced his share of homicidal psychotics, balked at this particular confrontation. So, I called the DN and found out that the part was only recently ordered. I wanted to complain, “You knew about this weeks ago… ” But, truth be told, I was a bit afraid of him, myself. So, instead, I meekly sniffed, “Uh… we’ve got places to go.” And, “We’re also now officially homeless.”

“I understand, I understand,” he said. “I’ll get Prevost to expedite this. Those boobs.”

“Tell them I’m the new travel writer for Bus Conversions Magazine. Maybe that’ll help,” I offered. Was that a snort on the end of the line or the click of a jack boot? In any event, the part came in, but the DN needed a few days to install it. So, we pulled up stakes and traded one scenic setting – Vanture’s lot, for another - DN’s lot, although the latter offered certain accoutrements the Vanture guys could never have dreamed of such as a barbed-wire fence and rats scurrying around garbage cans.

As he locked us in for the night, I could almost hear the DN sneer, “Where’s your kingdom, now, Princess?” Then, astonishingly, he gave us the combination to the gate, so we could come and go in our Jeep at night. He even let me use his fax machine for work. After three days, the deed was done, and we headed back to Vanture on a Friday evening, planning to stay through Tuesday for the last few adjustments. That night, in their lot, Tim noticed that while our bus door now locked fine from the outside and was unlikely to fly open on the highway, resulting in tortuous pain from wifely whining, there was just no way to lock it from the inside. Since, regrettably, we would rarely, if ever again be camped in a place that offered barbed-wire security, this was a problem. We left a message on the DN’s voice mail, asking if perhaps he might be kind enough to offer some suggestions? On Saturday, when Chris, John and Manny arrived for work, we asked their opinion. As they discussed options with Tim, I tried to get back into the bus. No go.

“Ah, honey,” I enquired, already knowing and dreading the answer, “Did you lock the door?”

“No,” he replied, already knowing and dreading my next line.

“Well, I can’t get in.” It was true. The door had jammed, again. And, again, our pets were inside. I flashed back to Reno and wondered if those locksmiths would still be willing to buy the thing for $85. I would go down quite a bit in price at this point. Fortunately, we had left a bedroom window open. After several tries at prying the door, Tim, with the slimmest hips of us all (I was never even in the running) got a ladder and managed to squeeze through. As he emerged from the front door, my phone rang. It was the DN, returning our message from the night before.

“Funny you should call right at this moment,” I began and handed the phone over to Tim. He explained to the DN that when he dismantled the door lock to come out just then, he noticed a part had broken. Rather than tell Tim what a boob he was, the DN apologized profusely and told us to bring the bus right over (on a Saturday morning!) and he would fix it immediately. Chris and John were wide-eyed in amazement.

“He apologized???” They cried, in unison.

“And, he let me use his fax,” I informed them, smug.

“HE LET YOU USE HIS FAX???”

“Well, boys. You know what it is I’ve got that you don’t,” I queried and to their questioning stares, provided the monosyllabic, two part answer.

“Boobs.”

Bus Conversion

I always wanted to be a Miss September....

http://busconversions.com/BCstory.htm

Sung to the tune of King of the Road

Prevost for sale or rent.
Will take as little as 50 cents.
Will even throw in my pets
And I won’t have no regrets
Because, I’m now a bus phobic.
Ridin’ in it makes me sick.
I’m a woman livin’ my man’s dream.
I’m green on the road.

I left the driving to him,
And went through about a case of gin.
Got tons of bruises and owies
Why couldn’t he have dreamt of Maui?
Now, I’m half a homeless pair.
My Princess thrown's become a buddy chair.
What did marrying an MD get me?
Green on the road.

Oooooh, squeal of tires!

Bus Voyage

When a girl finds herself forced to live in a bus for a year, the least she can do is throw a fabulous going away party. Besides, one must always look for occasions to wear one’s boa.

We and the Vanture guys invited all our friends and neighbors (except for the buttheads who called the police and had us ticketed when we parked in front of our own house to pack - you know who you are. And, oh, by the way, so sorry about the college students renting our house...) as well as everyone who worked on the bus. We got plenty of snacks and even more plentiful booze (these were mostly our friends, after all). Chris and John surprised us with what I think was the sweetest, albeit shortest lasting gift we’ve ever received: a case of our own “vintage” wines complete with a picture of our bus on the label.

Tim and I were busy greeting guests at the entrance to Vanture’s wherehouse, when one of our friends came over, and a bit timidly asked to see the bus. It was clearly in an adjacent garage bay, but Tim gamely shrugged and took him over for a private tour. It was only when he got to the passenger’s side that Tim realized what the fellow’s hesitation had been: there was a line. A long one. By then, 125 people had showed up to the party. What I found even more astounding than the sheer volume of people, was that every single one of them wanted to get into the very bus that I couldn’t wait to get out of.

I, of course, regaled everyone with horror stories of what I had endured on our meltdown cruise. Judy, our otherwise lovely mailwoman, had read about my bus phobia on this blog and offered, “Well, you can always put on your tombstone, ‘She left the driving to him.’” Now I understand how the term, “going postal” came into being. In general, the rest of my friends were very supportive and tried to make me feel better, with variations of “I’m sure you’ll get used to it,” and “all the bugs are certainly worked out by now,” and “what an adventure!” But, seeing my hands shake and my lips quiver whenever the words, “bus,” “road” or for that matter, “hi there!” were uttered, they would usually resort to leaning in close and urging, sotto voce, “get Tim to hypnotize you.” Such wonderful friends, except...

For some reason, our neighbor, Jackie Thompson, seems to share my bus phobia, even though I’ve never seen anything but a perfectly lovely car parked in front of her house. When I related my fear of overpasses, rather than try to reassure me as all my other friends had, that, of course, highway bridges are all high enough to accommodate our Prevost, Jackie instead, exclaimed, “Oh, no! Of course there’s less room than the signs say! When they pave the highways, they don’t take away the asphalt that’s already there. They ADD to it!” I gave her a wide-eyed look and asked, “Did Bob make you live on a bus, too?” Of course, her husband never had, but Jackie’s Australian, so maybe that explains something.

Chris and John have their own band and play occasional gigs around town. Several months before the meltdown cruise, when I was not yet feeling homicidal about the whole bus thing, I asked if they’d be willing to back me up if I sang a song as a surprise for Tim. They were thrilled to do something nice for my husband (as I wrote in my Project Nerd entry, he has that effect on people), and they got Kirby and Manny from their shop to play keyboard and drums, respectively. John’s adorable 18 year old daughter (and, you heard it here, first; future American Idol winner) Katie, sang back up. We practiced a couple of times and it all went well, but still, I had never sung in front of anyone before.

Chris, as lead guitarist, had arranged that when his band warmed up, he’d bring Tim and me over to say a few words to the crowd. Tim started with a hysterical monologue about building the bus and then learning to operate it, in which he thanked his driving instructor, Robin Labelle, for her gentle ways. He explained, “If I did a turn properly, she’d say, ‘nice turn… you wound up in the lane in the right position,’ if I screwed up a turn, she’d say, ‘good entrance into that turn,’ and if we nearly hit a lamppost, she’d say, ‘nice application of the turn signal.’”

When Tim finished, Chris turned to me, and as arranged, I pretended to be terribly nervous speaking in front of all those people. In fact, it wasn’t so hard to pretend: I had had a terrible fear of public speaking for most of my life. In college, in fact, if a class, no matter how small, required some sort of presentation, I would simply drop it.

When my first book (of course I’m going for the shameless plug, wouldn’t you?) I Know You Really Love Me came out and I was sent on a book tour, I had no choice but to speak or squirm. After two appearances on Larry King Live (and no, that’s not a plug. Larry doesn’t need me to plug his show… and what’s with that, anyway?) and a couple of keynote addresses to thousands of people, I found that I actually liked being in the spot light. As Tim starting lamenting, “my wife, the media whore.”

So now, at our party, I found it easy to get into the moment: I hemmed and hawed so convincingly that I even had Tim fooled. (He told me later he started getting really uncomfortable for me, until he remembered, “Wait a minute. My wife… shy?”) Even Chris, who had been in on it all, felt compelled to step in front of me and helpfully comment, “Just say it like I’m the only one here.” Nice ad lib, Chris. Now, get out of my spotlight. When I determined that I was making the audience uncomfortable enough and that no matter how I sang, it would be a relief compared to what they had already endured, I grabbed the mike, turned to the band and commanded in my best gravelly voice, “Join in any time, boys.”

To the tune of the Pointer Sister’s version of Bruce Springsteen’s Fire.

I’m riding in your bus.
You turn on the radio.
You’re pulling me close.
I say, “EYES ON THE ROAD.”
I say I don’t like it,
But, you know, I’m a liar.
‘Cause when you brake…
Oooooh, squeal of tires.

Late at night,
You’re drivin’ us home.
I say, “Park in a Wal-Mart,”
But, you’re in the zone.
I say I don’t love bus life,
But, you know, I’m a liar.
‘Cause when you brake…
Oooooh, squeal of tires.

It had a hold on you right from the start.
How could I compete with that Series 60 tart?
Live in it a year?
I said I’d never agree,
Until those four magic words…
In motion satellite TV.

Ralph Kramden and Otto.
And now my Tim.
My new motto
Is leave the driving to him.
My words say, “HOLEY SHIT WHAT HAVE WE DONE?”
But, my words, they’re lies.
‘Cause when you brake…
Oooooh, squeal of tires.

Oooooh, squeal of tires.
Hot bumper over tires.
Aluminum wheels on tires.
New lug nuts with tires.
Skid marks from tires.
I like the way you’re drivin’ now… tires.
Take me home to tires.

If you’re sorry you missed our show, you can catch us soon at a Wal-Mart near you.

Obviously, after the meltdown cruise, I had considered revising the lyrics somewhat, but all of my creative energy was going toward convincing myself that it was all a bad dream, that I was not weeks away from giving up my house, my social life, the vast majority of my clothes, every one of my designer purses (well, except for the Chanel -- they're back in this year) and possibly my life to… OK. I’ve whined enough about this elsewhere, even for me.

Katie then surprised us with a song written by her father, to the tune of Amazing Grace. They even shined the lyrics on a wall so everyone could join in.

Amazing bus so tall and proud
A sight so fine to see.
It once was used to haul a crowd,
But now it breeds envy.

‘Twas not so far or long ago
that this was just a whim.
Through many high and troubled times
It came to life for Tim.

Doreen did wonder long and hard
Would this a folly be?
It proudly parks in her front yard
A sight for all to see.

Amazing bus it’s finished now
And it’s a home for them.
A wondr’ing life they’ll lead somehow
And love this rolling gem.

Toward the end of the evening we wrapped the “Name Our Bus Contest.” We had put up a bulletin board with small squares of paper at the entrance to Vanture, explaining that whoever wanted to enter said contest should write down their brilliant idea for a bus name on one side and their own on the other, tacking the bus name side up (we didn’t want the judges to be unduly influenced). After a couple of hours, Tim and I took the bulletin board down and conferred in the Vanture conference room. Names like, “Boris” and “Fred” were quickly discarded. We also disqualified “Paradocs” as too many people would share in the prize. Personally, I liked “Crosswalk Killer,” but Tim, who within nanoseconds of thinking up the idea for the contest had decreed himself head judge, demurred. Finally, it was down to my friend Sheryl’s, “Wheels of Justice (Tim’s last name – Justice, not Wheels) and the eventual winner, “Princess Lines,” by our friend, Jane Ann, a woman who, although she worked with Tim for years at the hospital, obviously knows his wife quite well. The prize? To christen the bus, of course. As Tim put it, “Christening is obviously a Christian activity, and in trying to be sensitive to my wife’s being Jewish, I decided to be culturally aware and use Mogan David wine, or as we called it when I was growing up, Mad Dog 20/20.” After a first unsuccessful attempt, (oh, Lord, please not an omen) Jane Ann was able to break the bottle on the front bumper. As the fortified wine ate slowly into the cement, Manny stared forlornly at the spot just christened and sighed, “I’m gonna have to fix that, Monday.”

To the tune from Gilligan’s Island

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip.
That started from the Vanture shop
Because of [nod toward Tim] this here drip.

The driver, a husband livin’ his dream,
Got wife along with some ruse,
Two cats and a Poodle in their Prevost bus
For a three week shakedown cruise.
A three week shakedown cruise.

The weather started getting rough,
The door lock would not work.
If not for the fully stocked alcohol
Doreen’d think Tim a jerk.
She’d think him a total jerk.

The bus returned, marriage barely intact,
Thanks to new designer duds.
Next dream to live, she’ll consider the source,
And get a quick divorce.
She’ll get a quick divorce.

Bob gets out of the way as I start the tractor

Chiggers and Humidity and Tractors… Oh, My!

As we traveled through New Mexico, I had to admit that on a bus, one did get to see and experience places in a way that would not be possible by plane or even train, (although the old beat up Subaru I was planning to sell after this meltdown cruise was looking better and better all the time). In the midst of my in-motion terror, the welcome sign into one small New Mexico town did bring a smile to my face: “Portales, Home of 12,000 Nice People and 2 or 3 Grouches.” We left the State none to soon, however, for after spending only a few days in the Southwest and after buying my first cowboy hat, I had started speaking with a distinct twang. Now I know what got into Madonna after she moved to London.

I had downloaded instructions to the home of Tim’s father, Bob and his wife, Frances in Arkansas from Mapquest. We called to let them know we’d be there the next afternoon.

“Do you need directions?” Bob asked.

“Nope,” Tim assured him, “Doreen got ‘em off the internet. Right to your door.” What we soon learned about Mapquest is that while it certainly provides the most direct route, the most direct route is not necessarily the most drivable one - especially for an oversized vehicle. Bob and Frances live in an unincorporated part of small town, Van Buren. The internet directions seemed easy enough. We got off the highway and started following the instructions. The roads kept getting smaller and smaller. Soon, we were traveling over tiny, one lane bridges perched precariously over creek beds. We passed a “No Trucks” sign.

“We should turn back!” I exclaimed.

“We’re not a truck,” Tim blithely responded. “Besides, there’s no place to turn around.” He was right. We had no choice but to continue on. We arrived at a bridge with the sign, “Limit 30 Tons.”

“How many are we?” I cried, reeling with bus phobia.

“Twenty,” he replied, “Don’t worry.” We made it over that bridge, only to quickly come to another, this time with the sign, “Limit 13 Tons.” That was all I needed to turn my reel into a full fledged centrifuge, as I felt my lunch separating itself from my intestinal tract.

“WE’RE 20 TONS! WE’RE 20 TONS,” I screamed, grabbing the seat back to steady myself. That there are no armrests turns out to be a serious design flaw when the “buddy” seat is inhabited by a bus phobic.

“Don’t worry,” Tim assured me, a manic gleam in his eye as he barreled onward, “It’s too small for us to have all three axels on at the same time.” He hit the gas and we sped to the other side. I don’t know which is worse: A bus phobic wife or her bus crazed driver husband. Finally, we came to an obstacle that would even have lent The Simpsons'   Otto pause: a washed out culver. Tim stopped the bus, climbed down and inspected the impasse first hand.

“We need to back up,” I moaned, weakly. The lack of airsickness bags was another huge design flaw. That this was probably due to the absence of a seatback in front of me was little comfort. “We won’t make it.”

“I might agree,” Tim said, “but we still can’t turn around.” He was right. We were on a single lane road, with no room to park the Jeep, let alone turn the bus around. He got back behind the wheel and gingerly maneuvered us through the stream. When we finally made it to his father’s house, (I think I kissed the ground, but I can’t be sure… it’s all a blur) Bob and Frances had a good laugh when they heard how we came.

“We won’t even drive our cars that way!” Bob exclaimed.

While we were on Bob’s farm, I asked to drive the tractor. I may not have been willing to get behind the wheel of our bus, as Tim thought I should, but at least I could attempt to partially counter my phobia by driving some type of big rig. When Bob showed me the clutch and the seven speed pattern with high and low differential, I turned to him and asked, “Don’t you have one with an automatic?” He looked at me as if calculating the increase in insurance premium I was about to cost him. But, wearing my new cowboy hat, jeans and pair of old cowboy boots left over from my days in Tucson, I drove the thing across his cow pasture and back, without injury to man or beast. I guess all it takes to drive a tractor is the right outfit.

Arkansas in July. No wonder that upon hearing where we were going for our shakedown cruise, our friends shook their heads in disbelief. I was truly, more than ever, ready to call the home office and fire the bus driver. Buffalo Gnats, Chiggers, and my hair! Remember the Hindenburg Disaster? Oh, the humidity! It had been raining for the past week (the same rains that had washed out the narrow roads nearby) and parking in Bob and Frances’ front yard was probably not the brightest idea. We started sinking and by our second day there, were pitching distinctly starboard. Whenever Tim was in earshot, I couldn’t resist singing in my best falsetto, “Nearer My God to Thee,” alternating with an even more overwrought rendition than the original “My Heart Will Go On.” I still have a bruise on my chest from the climactic thumping part. Where’s Celine Dion when you need her?

One morning, we were awoken by Frances banging on the bus door.

“Tim! Tim!” She cried, “Come quick!” We both assumed something terrible had happened to Bob, but soon discovered that it was cousin JT, who lived down the road a piece, who needed help. While jump-starting his tractor that morning (and standing in front of it) he had gotten run over and was refusing to go to the hospital. Bob wanted Tim to go take a look at him. My first thought was, “OK. I guess my husband the psychiatrist can ask how JT feels about his near-death experience,” but before I could say anything, Tim had run out the door.

During the four hours before he returned, it started to pour. Now, I could almost feel the bus getting bogged down. Would we ever be able to get out? Did the local AAA have a flatbed truck to rescue us with? Was there even a local AAA? Would the entire earth swallow us whole and if so, what would I do with the pets? I decided that with Tim AWOL, I was acting captain and would be forced to go down with the ship. The only thing to do, then, was huddle under the covers with Shula, contemplating our murky demise. As I turned off the bedroom lights (the better to cower with), I remembered the large extension cord plugging the bus in to an outside outlet, allowing us the electricity to run our air conditioning, appliances, etc. Might we be electrocuted before we were submerged? It seemed as if Sunnydale’s Hellmouth had opened a franchise in Van Buren, Arkansas, trying to reclaim a lost member to the fold – our very own hellbus. Unto every generation, a pathetic Princess who listens to her husband’s idiotic plan is born. Oh, Buffy. Where were you  when I needed you?

Cousin JT finally agreed to go to the hospital after Tim told him that in his medical opinion (he left out that he was a shrink), JT would die if he didn’t get proper care. Good thing, too: turns out he had two punctured lungs, four broken ribs and a broken clavicle. The muddy ground that was my nemesis turned out to be his savior, because if that tractor had run over him on dry land, he surely would not have survived.

Later that day, as we drove into town for a quick errand, Tim broke out his best Dr. McCoy as he tried to explain to his father the folly of calling on a psychiatrist to make a house call during a medical emergency: "Damn it, Dad! I’m a psychiatrist, not a real doctor!”

Bob showed us the correct, non-Mapquest way to leave for home in a few days, but unfortunately, there was construction, considerably narrowing the two lane road. It had Jersey barriers that I found… disturbing.

“Are you sure we’ll fit?” I kept asking Tim, nervously. Yes, yes, he tried to reassure me.

“But, look how small that is! What if you hit… ” Finally, Tim interrupted with an exasperated, “Maybe we can get Bob and Frances to drive you to the highway.”

“Maybe we can get Bob and Frances to drive me to the airport,” I immediately shot back.

One night, we drove a few miles to the cabin of Joanne and Jay Rainwater. There, most Wednesday evenings for the past ten years, Jay and his friend, Don Murphy, play blue grass music together. Jay, a distinguished 70 year old with a ready, knee slapping grin (unless he has an instrument in his hand, in which case he compensates for the lack of knee slapping with an even wider grin) plays guitar and mandolin. Don, a handsome, lanky man in his early 60s, plays guitar and banjo. We all sat out on the deck, with another neighbor couple and the Rainwater’s two year old Chihuahua, Troubles, running from one to another of us, begging for a lap. You might say Troubles seemed a bit troubled herself, since as soon as she got the lap she seemed to be craving, she’d decide there was better lap to be had, and insist on getting down. Tim and I each held her, many a time, knowing full well there’d be hell to pay when we got back to the bus, in the form of accusatory looks from our own animals when they figured out we’d been cheating on them.

As we sat out on the deck, surrounded by tall, graceful trees, night fell and  hummingbirds gave way to fireflies. We saw a deer and her fawn at the edge of the yard. Jay and Don would play a few tunes, then let their fingers rest while everyone chatted for a spell, then play some more. Don laughed at times while he played, presumably because he’d made a mistake, although I never caught one. As Bob told him, “If you didn’t grin, no one would know you’d hit the wrong note!” During one of their breaks, Don told of a cow he had with a muscle disease which caused it to stink real bad. Jay commented that he himself couldn’t tell, because he couldn’t smell: his nerves had been cut during a dental procedure.

 “But,” he went on with that ready grin, “there’s a guy at work who can’t taste or smell, so I figure I’m ahead of the game.” Don, we were told later, had been offered tidy sums of money for his banjo - up to $18,000 - but he refused to sell. It was over 80 years old and had the best tone of any he’d ever played. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear too much of that wonderful sound, as Don left early, for he had to be up at 3:30 am to make his shift at the manufacturing plant.

As Tim and I talked later about how much we enjoyed the evening, he remarked that it was a throwback to a simpler time, when people depended on each other for entertainment, rather than technology. I wonder which is simpler, really; relying on TV for social glue, or on ourselves and each other, leaving it to our imaginations and talents to delight and ultimately bind us together.

Taken

Leave the Driving to Zarcon
 
From Carlsbad, we headed for Roswell, NM and the second annual UFO Festival. I had first heard of it from the short-lived WB series, Roswell,  about a group of stylish alien teens trying to keep their other-worldly identities secret from government agencies bent on dissecting them, while still managing to go to prom. (I’m a sucker for teen dramas.) As two shrinks, Tim and I eagerly anticipated the UFO Festival as the perfect opportunity to observe weirdness recreationally, without the expectation that we do something about it.
 
The UFO festival takes place over 4 days, but if you’re not an aficionado of all things alien, a little goes a long way. We first went to the Civic Center where, the Duras sisters from Star Trek, Next Generation (unfortunately, sans Klingon costumes), greeted participants at the door. We then entered a large exhibit hall, where a dozen or so authors sat at their booths, hawking books like, Flying Saucers Are Real, Diary of an Alien Abductee, Dear Mr. President: 100 Earth-Saving Letters, Underground Bases and Tunnels: What is the Government Trying to Hide? Also available to answer questions, was the journalist who, as was described in the conference brochure, “retired early to a mountaintop in southern Arizona to explore his relationship with reality.” As an expert of sorts on reality, I could’ve told him that if you have to explore your relationship with it, you probably don’t have one. But, it was only when I turned and came face to face with a large display of the book, Alien Log,  that I completely lost it. If you can’t get in touch with your inner 12 year old for that one, I’m sorry; I’m not going to explain it to you. Suffice it to say, I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Tim put his arm around me and ushered me away. He was afraid we’d be stoned as disbelievers.
 
“Don’t worry, honey,” I reassured him. I was by now able to stifle my laughter, but tears still streamed down my face. “They’ll think I’m crying because all this is triggering memories of my own abduction.” He was not placated. We walked over to another booth, where a couple sat and where I made the mistake of glancing at the woman. As soon as I did, she launched into her spiel.
 
“My husband,” she nodded over at her partner, “kept his abduction a secret from me for 18 years. He never talked about it with anyone, even though THEY didn’t tell him he had to keep it a secret,” she confided. I looked over at her wild-eyed husband. I’d seen that look before in untreated manic-depressives. She continued, picking up his tome, “this book is in large print for older people,” she proudly asserted. Well. Guess who just lost whatever slim chance she’d had of a sale. She went on, digging herself an even deeper hole, “and I made him take out all the profanity and sex so it’s suitable for kids.” That proved it; these people were certifiable. Fortunately, a true believer happened to arrive and distracted her with a question while I made my escape. I whirled on Tim, accusingly, “Why didn’t you rescue me?” He was just as fierce in his reply, “Don’t you be making eye contact with these people.”
 
We stayed to hear a lecture by the “original civilian investigator of the Roswell incident,” but decided to forgo hearing other ones entitled, “Who Are the Rogue Elements Involved in The Alien Agenda, An Insider Speaks,” and “Listening to Extraterrestrials: Telepathic Coaching by Enlightened Beings,”  and “Are There Really Military/Intelligence Agency Abductions?” 
 
Instead, we headed over to the UFO Museum on Main Street. Most of it is devoted to the “Roswell incident” of 1947 and the government cover up of said incident (weather balloon, shmeather balloon), although there was also a small exhibit covering ways to determine if one has been abducted. What particularly caught my eye on that list were unexplained bruises. These people should try living in a bus - you’re banging around so much, the pain doesn’t even register. I guess I’ve been “taken” many a time. I was, however, pleasantly surprised that there was nary a mention of “anal probes.”
 
One of the most intriguing theories for why aliens have returned to our planet so often and taken so many of our citizens is that we’re someone’s crop. Does make you stop and think, doesn’t it?
 
On our way back to Carlsbad, we passed the Eastern New Mexico State Fairgrounds, just on the outskirts of Roswell. Since we had tickets for the UFO Festival Concert there the following night (Willie Nelson was headlining – you don’t suppose… ?), we drove the Jeep in to see if there might be a place to park our rig. Sure enough, the Fairgrounds had RV hookups “around back, by the swine barn” (oh, Princess from the Island of Long, how far hast thou fallen?) and we reserved a spot.
 
The next day, as we rolled on in on the bus, everyone at the Fairgrounds – campers, staff, and cowboys – stood on their feet, waving at us with what can only be described as reverent stares. We were used to the “celebrity” treatment, but this was a bit much. It was only when we parked, got out and were approached by several people who asked, “Is Willie Nelson in there?” that we realized what all the fuss was about. I pulled Tim aside, “If we say ‘no,’ they’re liable to turn ugly.”
 
“What do you suggest? “he whispered back.
 
“Let’s tell ‘em Willie’s sleeping… but we can get them his autograph for $5 each,” I replied. Tim shook his head at me and started walking back to the crowd to explain.
 
“We’ll say it’s for Farm Aid!” I called after him, weakly.  Guess we won’t be enjoying diesel on Willie this trip. 
 

Bat Flight

Shula under bedcovers

Carlsbad Caverns (note the humidity as witnessed by my hair)

How Was I Supposed to Know I Have A Bus Phobia?

The night before we left Reno, we had Tim’s family over for a dinner party of sorts; we got take out. We had been too busy trying to fix the toilet to figure out the kitchen appliances. A valve was broken, so there was no water to flush. The only way to use the toilet was to pour water in it from a bucket. It was Little House on the Prairie  meets  Magical Mystery Tour Bus.  Frankly, I wasn’t too upset. At least we had water in the rest of the rig. I knew now from experience that it could’ve been much worse.

It was at about this time that “the bitch” as we came to call her, started talking.

“Alert!” she’d squawk. “Fresh water system, three-quarters… grey water system, seven eights.” She apparently lived in an upper kitchen cabinet, along with all the master control systems for the bus. Tim and I dubbed her, “the bitch” because she never said anything really useful, like, “Alert! Front door about to fly open!” Or, “Alert! Cat about to pee in bed!” Or, more useful still, “Alert! This bus thing is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had!” Within a few days, after we realized that the pronouncements she did make weren’t even true, i.e. we had far less fresh water than she said we did, we starting calling her, “the lying bitch.”

As we prepared to leave Reno, I noticed Tim procrastinating. He finally admitted he was wary of the next disaster down the road. An insecure driver behind the wheel of over 40,000 pounds of bus is not a good thing. I tried my best to console him.

“I know I’m not being rationale,” he said. “I know nothing’s going to happen.” An irrational bus driver is even worse than an insecure one. And, if Tim really thought no more bad things were going to happen on this most accursed of trips, he was quite irrational, indeed.

On the drive out of Reno, Shula spent the entire day sitting in the “buddy seat” with me. It wasn’t that she’d suddenly gotten courageous, but rather that we had decided to keep the door to the bedroom shut (we really liked our new mattress). She climbed up to my lap and dug her face in against my stomach. See no evil, hear no evil, is no evil, I guess. Occasionally, she’d lift a terrified eye in my direction for a quick, accusatory glare. Tim said, “looks like she’s saying, ‘Mommy! Make the nightmare stop!’” After a little while, I actually though she was purring, but soon realized the “purr” was coming from her haunches. Trembling was more like it.

The rest of the trip to our next campsite was uneventful. Tim even managed to navigate through aggressive rush hour traffic without using the locomotive quality air horn he’d had installed. (Well, to be honest, he had many an opportunity, but didn’t want to give Shula a heart attack.) Once we stopped, he showed me his still shaking hands as he recounted how, during his bus driving lessons with an RTD instructor (the wife of a nurse at the hospital), they had encountered heavy freeway traffic. When Tim balked at her suggestion to change lanes, thinking no one would let him in, she calmly informed him, “Sometimes you just gotta move the bus.” It was this refrain he had heard in his head, guiding him through the nearly bumper to bumper mess.

After we parked for the night at a campground, we high-fived each other, exclaiming, “our first trip without a disaster!” We spoke too soon. It was over a hundred degrees in the desert, but when we hooked into shore power, there was none to be had. We then tried to fire up the generator, but it was overheated. So were we. So were Miles, Morty and Shula. The maintenance man for the campground came by and explained that the entire line of campers went down as soon as we hooked in. Although they’d been upgrading their thirty-year-old electrical system, some of their sites just couldn’t handle bigger rigs like ours. We were moved to another spot, several rows away, but I suspect the problem was campground-wide, because as we lumbered down the lanes to our new place, nearly everyone got out of their rigs to shoot us the same looks obese people get when boarding airplanes.

I found myself becoming phobic about the bus. (Actually, I could very well have been bus phobic for years without any opportunity to know it until now.) Not just that something terrible would happen, like getting locked out, or the generator not working or even finding no room at a truck stop, all problems we had already encountered and which had proved survivable. No, instead, I found myself fearful any time the bus was in motion. On the slightest downhill, I’d try to mind-meld with Tim, to get him to put on the engine break, my foot stomping on air. At every turn, I’d clutch the seat, anticipating a roll over. At every dip in the road, I’d hold my breath, listening for the sound of bending steel, a portent of our imminent, albeit mercifully swift, midsectioning. It didn’t help that the glasses in the wine rack clinked together all the time. What was I afraid of? I kept asking myself. The answer was always the same: careening off the road amidst the sound of all our belongings crashing. I didn’t even get so far as to imagine my own or anyone else’s demise. It was the careening and the crashing. Careening and crashing. Phobias aren’t rational.

One day, on a particularly hilly, winding and dipping road, I was particularly scared and particularly quiet. As a good shrink, Tim noticed.

“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked.

“Nothing.” I realized I’d better start talking about something, anything, before he caught on. Just then, we happened to pass a highway sign announcing the number of miles to Albuquerque. Without even thinking, I launched into a rousing rendition of the old Partridge Family hit:

Point me… yee
In the direction of
Albuquerque-e-e-e…

And, then, with a bit too much feeling:

I want to go home.
Please let me go ho-o-o-ome.

Sometimes, a song is just a song… but not in this case. By the end of that line, I was sobbing. And, although I’m sure Tim didn’t recognize the song, he clearly realized that those fake TV 70s singing group lyrics could hardly plumb such depth of feeling.

“What is wrong?” He asked, again, this time more insistent. I mulled over my response. I’ve always found that it’s just not worth keeping things from my husband, for not only does he find out eventually, but I always somehow manage to feel better after confiding in him. I guess that’s part of why he had such a busy psychiatric practice. Yet, this seemed to be a special case; telling him that I was terrified of riding in the bus, while he was driving the bus  did not seem like an especially good plan. On the other hand, he knew something was wrong, and keeping it from him would let his imagination run wild, although how he could possibly imagine something worse was beyond me. I took a deep breath and plunged in.

“OK. Look,” I began. “I can tell you what’s wrong, if you really think you want to know what’s wrong, but if you don’t,” I breathlessly continued, “you should tell me right now, because I don’t really have to tell you… especially while you’re driving.” After an introduction like that, how else could he respond but, “tell me, already!”

“Fine,” I began in a rush of words, “It’s not that I don’t trust your driving. You’re a great driver. It’s just that people are idiots!” I exclaimed, never for an instant including my idiotic self in that assertion. “What if someone makes a sudden stop? What if we hit an elk? What if the brakes go out? I keep imagining us careening over the edge of the road. I don’t even imagine the dying part, just the careening. The screeching of tires, the shattering of glass. But, most of all, the careening. The CAREENING. I can’t take it anymore!” He gave me an incredulous look. I nearly lost it.

“HEY! Hey, driver! Eyes on the road!” Tim shook his head, but resumed facing forward. I continued.

“And, the overpasses! Remember the WMD!”

“What WMD?” He asked, exasperated.

“Exactly!” I cried, triumphant. “The government lied about WMD, they could lie about the overpasses! How do we know they’re really as tall as they say? Whenever we go under one, all I can think is, ‘it’s going to sheer us clean off!’”

“I can’t believe it!” Tim exclaimed, “You’re phobic about the bus.” So much for making me feel better. I guess he gave at the office. I certainly didn’t need a shrink to tell me I was phobic, especially when his solution was to pull over to a deserted parking lot so I could learn to drive the thing, to “feel it’s power.” Maybe in my next life. Just my luck, I’ll come back as John Madden’s wife.

I must admit, we had a thoroughly enjoyable respite in Carlsbad. The campground was lovely: Spacious, well maintained sites and a hot tub for adults only. We toured the Caverns and stayed for the evening bat fight of hundreds of thousands of Mexican Freetails. I didn’t even scream as they spiraled out of the cave. I guess that’s one plus of my new-found bus terror: even a phobic’s gotta prioritize.

I calmed down a bit after several stationary days, until Tim decided to fire up the stereo for the first time and couldn’t get enough base. He thought perhaps it had to be adjusted through the TV, so he lowered the 42 inch flat screen from it’s tucked perch in the ceiling… right onto the only ever so slightly ajar stereo doors. They and their glass inserts cracked into hundreds of splinters. I should know, I’m still pulling shards out of my feet.

The next day, Tim decided to tackle the combination washer dryer which consists of just one space-saving unit. I cringed as he got out the instructions.

“Don’t worry, honey,” he tried to reassure. “What’s the worse that can go wrong?”

“Oh, I don't know," I mused. "How about a flood? And if that happens, I guarentee you, the locusts and pestilence won't be far behind.” He ignored me and started perusing the manual.

“Christ! This isn’t a washer dryer. It’s the control panel to the space shuttle!” I relaxed, figuring it would take awhile for anything to blow up. Then, “OUCH!” While peering around the machine to try to familiarize himself with it, Tim hit his lip. It was bleeding. I guess HAL didn’t feel like washing clothes just then.

Tim, Miles, Shula, Morty, the lying bitch, HAL and I settled into a routine while parked in Carlsbad. I would do insurance reviews and write during the day, while Tim did paperwork to close out his practice, some bus or Jeep maintenance and hike with the dog. We’d rendezvous late in the afternoon and do something together, as by then even I was itching to get outside. Either we’d take a walk or a bike ride, swim or go into town. Afterwards, we’d have happy hour: Tim had discovered some local beer and I’d make myself a fruity martini, something I was becoming quite expert at. (It’s amazing what forced self sufficiency allows one to accomplish.) We’d drink, have some snacks, sit on lawn chairs near our rig, Miles lying by our sides and watch the sunset. A neighbor might stop to say hello, especially if he or she was with dog. After an hour or so, we’d cook… er, thaw, a rudimentary dinner. Afterwards, we’d sit inside, listen to the stereo and talk. The days and nights passed pleasantly. At home, we would have watched a network Evening News show while eating dinner, then both work for a couple of hours before watching a little TV before bed. It seems our communications guy had done us a favor by not hooking the TV up. We were “off the grid,” in our own little steel and fiberglass world. It finally felt good.

Until we started moving again.

John and Steve Fix the Lock

Our First Campground at the Reno Hilton

Why Can’t Buses Be As Kind As People?

Our next day on the road was almost uneventful, as least compared to the day before. Tim started up the bus at 8:30 am, with me still asleep -- for about 30 seconds. I had thought sleeping on our bus would have that familiar, comforting feeling, harkening back to all the snoozing I’d done on Greyhounds traveling back and forth to college. But, laying flat in a Queen bed in the very back of our bus was anything but reassuring. All of the turns, bumps and ruts were amplified. I felt like we were careening off the road during an earthquake while swerving to avoid Godzilla. I quickly got up, staying in my pajamas (so, there is a bright spot to this whole bus thing, after all). At first, I was glad I had, as the weather had cleared and the mountains ahead in Utah were stunning. But, once we got into those treacherous beasts, destroyers of already dwindling will with their "runaway truck lane" and "steep grade ahead" signs, I longed for the insecurity of the bed in the back. I tried to calm myself. I was being ridiculous.

Tim started having trouble with the brakes. I asked what the matter was.

"Nothing, sweetie," he reassured between clenched teeth. When Tim won't even tell me what's wrong, there's trouble. I clutched Morty to my frilly flannel chest (Shula was still, of course, huddled under the bed covers), imagining our imminent, fiery demise. Suddenly, Tim figured out the problem. Rather than turn the “Jake” brakes on high, he’d turned them off. As he later explained, diesel engines don’t normally slow with compression (i.e., when you take your foot off the gas in a car, it slows down. With a diesel engine, it just keeps going). Our diesel engine bus, however, was equipped with Jake brakes, (God bless you, Jacobs Company) a compression retarder that uses the engine itself to aid in controlling the vehicle. This allows the bus to slow without using the regular brakes, which would quickly overheat on such steep grades with such massive tonnage and eventually lose their ability to stop the bus at all. Not a good thing.

To operate the Jake brakes, the driver toggles a switch with his left hand. Unfortunately, Tim had assumed that "up" was high, when in fact, "up" was off.

“Much better, huh?” He laughed, after realizing his mistake. Yup.

We arrived in Reno close to 8 pm and parked in front of his mother’s house for the night. Tomorrow, we would go to our first campground, but now, we were due at Tim’s brother’s house to join a birthday party for a niece. The bus door, however, would not lock.

At some point during the conversion to a motor home, the large swinging handle a bus driver would normally use to close the door (which trips the air lock) was removed. Instead, we had a small button on the dash that activated said air lock (so small, in fact, Tim kept forgetting about it our first day). A regular, RV door lock was also installed, but when the door frame twists even slightly, it can pop open (as also demonstrated that first day). Since the air lock does not work when there's no power to the bus, we needed both systems.

Tim got out his tools and took the door lock apart. While he did that, I worked on figuring out the ice maker in the fridge. I needed a martini. Bad. (Yeah, I know it's "badly," but I didn't need it "badly," I needed it bad, see?) While he got the lock working as well as he could, I saw that in fact, there were a few ice cubes already in the tray. Unfortunately, the manual said to discard this first set. Something about chemicals… dirt… growing a third eye… I didn’t know and didn’t care. I needed my Cosmo and I needed it. Bad.

Soon, some nieces and nephews returned to drop Dorothy home from the party. They all came in for a look and were duly impressed. After the tour, Tim’s namesake nephew, a strapping 22 year old who I was close to, took me aside.

“Aunt Doreen,” he said. “You’re a really good sport.”

“Yup,” was all I could reply, feeling no more pain, as I sucked down the last fruity, tranquilizing drop.

The next morning, Sunday, brought with it a new day… and a new mattress. Dorothy’s birthday party went off without a hitch. I noted that one of Tim’s grandnieces, an adorable three year old named Ileana, wore a lovely blue satin frock for the occasion. I was even more impressed, however, when she chose a perfectly matching balloon to take home. Now there’s a girl who knows how to accessorize.

Tim spent most of the rest of the day working on that darn door lock, this time with the help of his brother and nephew, while I spent the afternoon with Shula in bed. I still hadn’t been sleeping well and the party had been very early in the morning, the only reservation we could get for 20 people on Father’s Day.

It was noon by now and I was still too wound up to sleep, even after days of sleep deprivation. I was strung out, on edge and way too wired. But, with only a couple of hours to nap before a family dinner, I was desperate. I sat on the floor of the kitchen and perused the liquor cabinet. I was too exhausted to put in much effort. Certainly, any violent motion, as was required by the martini shaker, was out of the question. But, what would taste acceptable on its own? Finally, I spied my prize.

“Ah, Frangelico! Come here my nutty little friar friend,” I cooed. I had that monk unfrocked so fast, he didn’t know what was sucking the life out of him. I didn’t want to deal with dishes (we had forgotten dishwashing soap, anyway), so I just drank the sweet, hazelnut nectar straight out of the bottle, sitting right there on the floor. I grabbed his chocolaty, if misnamed buddy, Cream de Cacao (who isn't creamy at all. Why is that?) with my other hand, gulping it down as a chaser. Yum. Tim walked in to get a tool.

“What are you doing?” he exclaimed, looking at his watch. I’m not a big drinker. I’ll have a cocktail on the weekends, maybe a glass of wine with dinner then, too, but that’s about it. Here it was, noon on a Sunday and I was well on the road to getting soused. On the road. Oh, God. Better have another.

While I napped, Tim thought he fixed the lock well enough to hold us until we could get to an RV service place, so we drove over to our first campground for the night. I was so looking forward to my first real shower in three days. Unfortunately, the water wasn’t hot, or even particularly warm. Apparently, even when hooked up to shore lines, we still needed diesel fuel to heat the water to a reasonable temperature, as we didn't have a hot water tank. After nearly a thousand miles since we last filled up, we just didn’t have enough left. So, we splashed around as best we could and went to bed.

The next morning, after another fairly sleepless night (we couldn’t figure out how to get the fan in the bedroom to stop cycling until morning. The communications guy was supposed to have installed a noise machine, but guess what?) Tim went to do errands with his mother. I decided to fire up the internet for the first time. At least, as I lived this new, Spartan, chaotic and at times terrifying life for an entire year, I didn’t have to completely give up my old one. The internet was my link to friends, family and everything I'd left behind. I also needed it to do my insurance review work, something I was actually looking forward to getting back to that day, as it would provide some sense of normalcy.

But, the satellite wasn’t working. I called tech support and discovered that our communications guy had not installed a crucial bit of software. Big surprise. Of course, the only way to install it was to download it. But, I had no internet.

I was now over the edge, careening into a deep gully, and the engine wasn't even on. I climbed over Shula into the bed and had a good bawl. Sometimes, that’s just what a Princess has gotta do. After a few minutes, I splashed some very cold water on my face, grabbed a floppy disc and ventured outside, searching for someone with the same satellite antenna on the roof of their rig. I quickly found one and knocked. An older lady peered out the door.

“Hi,” I ventured. “This is my first day ever in a campground, and I really don’t know the proper etiquette, but would you mind… ?”

She was very kind. In spite of how crazed and desperate I seemed (well, she did have a Doberman in her rig) she let me in, got on the internet and downloaded the program I needed. I thanked her profusely.

“You have no idea what a kindness you’ve done here. Thank you,” I said. She reassured me that her shakedown cruise, years ago, had been no picnic, either.

Tim returned soon after and wanted to head out to gas up so that we could have a proper shower. I kept procrastinating, terrified of some new disaster.

“Honey,” he said, “the filling station is less than a mile down the road. It’ll be fine.” I took a deep breath.

“O.K.” We got to the pump at 4:30 pm. We left close to 8. While I went in to prepay, Tim went out to wash the windows... then couldn’t get back in. The door lock had totally jammed.

A couple of mechanics came over to help. They and Tim worked on it for nearly an hour, without a budge. All I had was my wallet. Fortunately, Tim had his cell phone. I called AAA. They sent out the most manic mechanic I had ever seen, and in my line of work, I can assure you I’ve seen a few. Although he talked a mile a minute, flew around his truck getting tools and was a whirl of activity around the lock itself, (although I'm still not exactly sure what he did) he just couldn’t get it open. The pets were inside in the sweltering heat. Tim proposed breaking the glass on one of the small slider windows. I looked up from my 5’3”, 116 pound frame to his just over 6’, 175 pound one.

“Do you really think I can fit through that?” I asked, incredulous.

“No, but I can,” he replied. He immediately realized his mistake. “Oh, honey, “he tried to reassure me. “What I meant was, of course I would be the one to crawl through it, because I've got to figure out how to unhinge the lock from the inside.”

Hardly placated, I nevertheless turned to the task at hand, filing his remark away on the complaint form for the mythical home office I had concocted in my head, so I wouldn’t feel we were so very out there, totally on our own. There, “insulting passenger” joined, "nearly killed passenger," "nearly killed passenger," and "nearly killed passenger." Maybe they would consider replacing the driver.

Several former bus drivers (and possible candidates) approached during that particular ordeal, offering advice and assistance. Finally, someone looked up the number of a locksmith down the street. I called. He could be there in 15 min.

When John Smith and Steve Lauricella of ABC Lock and Glass arrived, they were like something out of an Abbott and Costello routine.

“Don’t pick the lock. He says he has a key,” John said to Steve, nodding over to Tim.

“Oh, that wouldn’t be too bright, would it?” replied Steve, still picking the lock.

“You said you wouldn’t do it,” said John, “but you’re still doin’ it.” Steve shook his head, while still picking the lock. “No, I’m not,” he replied.

They were not inspiring much confidence. I burst into tears. John immediately spun around, looked me in the eyes and said, “I will not leave here until you get into your bus.” I immediately stopped crying and gave him a weak smile.

Tim told me to take a walk with him.

“Honey, I am so sorry for dragging you on this trip. This whole bus thing was my idea. I can't believe I'm putting you through all this." I knew how much this year meant to him.

“Look, it was your dream, but I don’t blame you. I did agree to it. And,” I lied, “I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet.” He gave me a dubious look, but we returned to our own private comedy team.

As they worked, we started telling them about all our mishaps. Steve kept saying how envious he was that we were doing this for a year. Tim kept saying if he was so envious, he was sure I’d give him a great price on the bus.

After about an hour, they got it open. I ran in and checked on the pets. When I got out, Steve was getting the bill ready.

“Sorry about this, folks,” he said. “Is $85 OK?”

“For the bus?” I exclaimed. “Sold!” They all laughed. Only, I wasn’t joking. John promised he’d come by the next morning to permanently fix the lock. They ended up sending someone else as John had quit. I'll always wonder if seeing a grown psychiatrist cry is simply too much for any human being.

By the time we got back to the campground, it was too late to go out to dinner with Tim’s mother. I got into the shower first.

“You’re sure I can use all the hot water I want without taking away from your shower?” I asked Tim. He assured me that was the case. It felt so good to wash my hair for -- I hate to admit it -- the first time in four days. As soon as I finished, Tim stepped in and soaped up. The water stopped. All over the bus.

“Damn,” he exclaimed. "I must have hooked something up wrong." He toweled off, went outside and fixed the problem. Some hook up thing. On his return, he asked, “aren’t you glad that happened to me and not you?”

“It’s truly unfortunate how little pleasure that gives me at this time,” I replied. We got dressed and went over to the casino next door for a quick supper. I ordered a Marguerita.

“12 or 24 ounce?” the bartender asked. I asked her to point out the 24 ounce size. It was gargantuan. There was no way I could finish it, so I ordered the 12. Five minutes later, I had downed that little strawberry sucker and was back at the bar for its towering sibling. When Tim saw me return with it, his eyes grew wide. They grew wider still when I downed it. Quickly.

Tim was up all night with food poisoning. His mother apparently had it, too. They must have gotten it while out that day for lunch. Mercifully, I was spared. For now.

Bus-ted

Miles, Morty and Shula (resplendent in white fur) after a grueling first day

Meltdown Cruise

The morning dawned bright and sunny. Tim and I were well rested as we finally left Boulder for our three week “shakedown cruise,” first stop, Reno, Nevada.

At least that’s the way it was supposed to have been.

We awoke in the morning to pouring rain. Rather than the early start we had planned, we still had packing to do and finally left the house at 3 pm. The electronics guy was still fiddling with the bus the night before, so we hadn’t been able to pack much. At 12:30 am, when he showed us the not yet completely working system, I finally whispered to Tim, “I can live without TV for three weeks. He can fix it when we get back.” Tim looked at me as if an alien had taken over my body.

“Are you sure? That’s like normal folk going without food or water.” I gave him the evilest eye I could pry open that time of night and we went to bed.

Since ours was a narrow, one way street on a cul-de-sac, I had to guide Tim as he backed down the hill, then make sure no traffic was coming, as he swung the rear end of the bus into an intersection. No problem, I thought. I’ve flown many a time and studied those jump-suited gentlemen on the tarmac, effortlessly guiding pilots into the jet way.

Things were going smoothly until I discovered why those guys are all uniformly dressed and why their uniforms never seem to include sandals: I walked backwards, easing Tim down the hill, my arms perpendicular to the ground, forearms in unison alternating perpendicular, vertical, perpendicular, vertical… until one little floppy sandal slipped off. I quickly made the universal signal for “stop” or what should be the universal signal -- wildly flailing arms -- as I stepped behind the descending 40,040 pounds of Prevost, reached down and retrieved my shoe, not even flinching as the sound of air brakes hissed in my ear. (Perhaps if I had known that’s what the sound was, I would have at least half-flinched.) I then helped Tim complete the rest of the back up maneuver and climbed into the bus. I felt pretty proud of myself, until Tim, white as the cute little camper van I would, by the end of the day, wish we had have gotten instead, gave me a horrified look.

“NEVER stop behind the bus while I’m backing up,” he said with a shrillness I hadn’t heard from him before.

“But, sweetie,” I replied, “you were going to run over my favorite sandal!”

“NEVER stop behind the bus while I’m backing up,” he repeated, his new mantra. This was not the last time he would raise his voice fearing for my life that day.

We got safely on the road, until we hit the highway. At which point, the bus door flew open. I, of course, was in the passenger seat, immediately to its left.

“SHIT!” Tim screamed. “You’re belted in, right?” Indeed, I was. Did he think I was crazy? He’d only learned to drive the thing a few weeks ago.

“I can get it,” I calmly replied, not wanting to distract the driver. After all, there must be a reason for the sign up front that says, “FOR PASSENGER SAFETY FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS OPERATION OF THIS BUS WHILE ANYONE IS STANDING FORWARD OF THIS WHITE LINE.” I quickly unbuckled my seat belt, climbed down and stood both in front of the door and the white line, grabbing the door handle with my right hand. One. Two. Three. As I swung it in toward me, the force of the wind pulled it open even wider, this time with me attached, being sucked out.

“SWEETIE! NO! STOP!” Tim screamed. It wasn’t so much the castrato-like octave of his voice as the slap of the cold, wet rain on my face that shocked me into Sandra Bullock mode. I grabbed the handrail along the entry stairs with my left hand, my right still on the door handle. My slide to a 70 mile an hour certain death, (or at the very least, vast array of new prosthetic devices), ceased.

“LET GO OF THE DOOR!” Tim barked, as he tried to wrestle the bus into the emergency lane.

“No,” I cried, “I think I can do it!” Reasoning that Sandra Bullock had been able to do all those stunts in Speed wearing a simple sundress, while I was in a brand new, designer track suit and all I had to do was close a door, I kept my left hand on the rail, braced myself and tried again. And, again. I just could not achieve my goal until Tim managed to stop the bus. At that point, he pressed a button on the dash that actuates the door’s airlock, bolting it shut.

“I am so sorry, sweetie,” he said, as white as the line on the shoulder of the road we were now straddling. “It won’t happen again,” he promised.

“Better not,” I snapped, “or I’ll have to invoke the ‘two strikes and you’re a dimwit rule.’” Tim nodded, his face solemn. That would be the second to last thing he’d ever want me to do, right behind fly out the bus door.

The “two strikes and you’re a dimwit rule” was decreed one night when Tim left his wallet at home and couldn’t pay for dinner. When we go out, if I carry a purse at all, (what are husbands for, anyway) it’s to make a fashion statement, not necessarily to carry anything practical, like money or credit cards. For weeks afterward, every time we’d leave the house, I’d ask, “do you have your wallet?” Finally, Tim begged in exasperation, “if I only forget something once, do you really have to remind me every time?” Hence, the “two strikes and you’re a dimwit rule.” Came in really handy the second time he left the ignition on in my car over night, draining the battery.

Things started looking up when we crossed the border into Wyoming. The rain was now merely a drizzle and I was beginning to enjoy my perch up high, along with the waves and stares of passing motorists.

“Look! They think we’re celebrities!” Tim exclaimed.

“No,” I corrected him. “They think I’m a celebrity. They think you’re the bus driver.”

“At least I get to drive a celebrity,” he mumbled under his breath. By the time we reached a truck stop in Laramie to gas up, the rain had started in again, hard. As he stood out in the downpour, Tim realized he didn’t know how to operate the diesel fuel. He called over to the driver of a big rig next to us.

“So, is this pay at the pump?” The trucker gave him a condescending look. “No,” he said, “push the intercom and tell ‘em which pump you’re on.” Two hundred twenty dollars later, our 179 gallon tank filled, Tim climbed back in with a bleeding hand.

“What happened?” I asked, alarmed, thinking perhaps he’d come to blows with the trucker over the not so subtle slight to his manhood.

“Oh, I noticed the tow cable for the Jeep was frayed. It’s been dragging on the ground. I had to shorten it,” he said. I gave him a worried look, my brow furrowed. “I don’t think I remembered to pack bandaides.”

“I did,” he replied, ripping up a piece of paper towel. “They’re in the bay.” He wrapped his hand as best he could and we headed back on the highway. As soon as we hit the speed limit, the door flew open, again. After the previous incident, Tim, who always likes to lord it over me that I took physics for non-majors, had explained the concept of “camber,” by which the angle of the door away from the bus creates lift, thus precluding any hope of my being able to close it.

So, this time, I let Tim ease the bus to a stop before I attempted to shut the door. We must have both had a flashback to my near death experience of only a couple of hours earlier. We looked deep into each others’ eyes.

“Two strikes and you’re a dimwit rule,” we chimed in unison.

Night fell. So did the hale. Tons of it, the size of the tassels on my last season Cole Hahn loafers. Tim’s face was as white as the paper towel on his hand had been for the first split second of its use. Even the truckers were pulling over on the shoulder. So did we. The sound of the hale pounding into the steel skin of our bus was deafening. I was certain the windshield would crack. Or worse. The storm let up after five interminable minutes, resuming the pelting rain we were suddenly pining for. Our dog, Miles and our male cat, Morty, who had been snuggling on the sofa like the best buddies they are, now sat up at attention. Before Tim started the bus again, I dashed into the back to check on Shula, our female cat, who had spent the entire trip thus far cowering under the bed covers.

“I bet this scared the pee out of her,” I mused. It had. Right through to the mattress.

Neither of us wanted to venture outside to inspect the damage. While Tim struggled to remember if we had coverage for hail under our new RV policy, I wondered how in the world we could ever break the news to Manny, Vanture’s paint and body work man who had painstakingly detailed the bus at our house only the day before. Miraculously, we didn’t have to do either, as the hail had not left even one tiny dent.

Our plan had been to make it to West Wendover, Nevada, just across the Utah border for our first night. There was a very convenient truck stop we had spotted many times on our car trips to Reno. Tim’s mother, Dorothy, lived there and was turning 80 in two days. We had organized a surprise party breakfast at her favorite restaurant, so we really could not be late. West Wendover was a twelve hour drive from Boulder, very doable if we had gotten an early start. But, as we headed into Rock Springs, Wyoming, it was already 11:30 pm (a normally six hour drive had taken us eight) and we were both drained. We decided to stop for the night at another landmark we’d taken note of, The Flying J truck Stop, just off Interstate 80. There it was. And, there it went. We took the next exit intending to turn right back around, but ended up in the deserted parking lot of a college campus. Tim stopped the bus so we could catch our breaths, make a plan and wait for some improved visibility.

“I think we should just stay here for the night,” I said, my voice shaky.

“I don’t want to. A deserted parking lot isn’t safe.” Tim had made up his mind and besides, I always deferred to him for safety issues. Since the electronics guy also had not hooked up the security cameras, it really didn’t seem like a good idea to stay, anyway. We ate a quick snack and headed back to the Flying J.

You might think a truck stop would be easily marked, but there was construction going on, the rain was still going strong and somehow we missed the turn, again. As we barreled down the wrong street, trying to find a place to turn around, the bus door flew open for the third time.

“SHIT!” Tim exclaimed, his face turning as white as the cotton atop the new Tylenol bottle he’d popped open after the second door incident. This time, I couldn’t help but laugh as he stopped the bus to airlock the door.

“You know, honey,” I said, “the only bad thing left to happen is to get the bus stuck somewhere we have to back out of, so we have to unhook the Jeep in this weather.” And, that’s exactly what happened a few minutes later, with the Jeep sticking out into a four lane road.

We finally made it to the Flying J, Tim driving the bus and me following behind in the Jeep. It had been bad enough unhooking it in the storm while watching for traffic, so we decided not to bother rehooking it just then. Unfortunately, the only spaces available at the truck stop involved Tim backing up the bus. The side view mirrors were so fogged up from the rain that he just could not see to do it. We got out of our respective vehicles and conferred in the downpour. Well, maybe conferred isn’t exactly the right word. I admit it. I begged.

“PLEASE, honey. Let’s go back to that school.” And, so we did, finally parking for our first night at 1:30 am. God bless you, West Wyoming Community College.

As we turned the mattress and hand-rinsed the pee-soaked linens in the sink (we didn’t’ know how to use the combination washer-dryer, yet) I had my darkest moment of the day, as I spied a still traumatized Shula, huddled in a corner.

“She’s not going to adapt to this bus thing,” I thought. “Maybe we should just leave her with Tim’s mother in Reno… and maybe Dorothy’ll agree to take me in, too.”

Our bus has three temperature zones, one for the main living area, one for the bathroom and one for the bedroom. We cranked the heat in zone three and climbed into a sheetless bed. We awoke an hour later, shivering.

“Something’s wrong with the heating system,” Tim said. “I’m freezing.”

“Me, too,” I answered, teeth chattering. We grabbed an extra blanket (mercifully not left in the bay) and somehow managed to sleep a few more hours. It was only sometime the next day, after I kept turning up the air conditioning in zone one (not that Tim minded this time, he was sweltering by the windshield), went back to the bedroom to check on Shula (still in full cower mode) and noticed how much cooler it was in there, that we realized zone one, not zone three, was actually the bedroom.

Surely the Karma Gods had intended that we get all the bad luck out of the way the first day.

Yeah, right.

Manny Rivera painstakingly detailing the bus the day before we leave

Project Nerd doing one final wash before the first trip

Project Nerd

People often wonder how Tim and I ended up together. We count ourselves among them. Other than our occupations, I doubt you could find a more disparate pair: Tim loves the outdoors, treats everyone he meets with kindness and has an intense need to keep busy, to accomplish things. I’m more of a misanthropic couch potato. When it came time for Tim to give up his practice, which included being Medical Director of a psychiatric hospital, his patients cried. The staff cried. I even detected tears in the eyes of the janitors, for Tim is a kindred spirit to Everyman.

Although we’ve been together fifteen years and I am a psychiatrist, after all, the one thing I still cannot understand about my husband is this: Why a man who has spent twelve long years of his life pursuing higher education, would aspire to be a manual laborer. If that’s what you want to do, why not just skip all that expensive, time consuming schooling? The truth is, since the moment I met him, Tim dreamed of giving up the whole psychiatry gig to pursue his ideal job: railroad engineer.

Since that would be way too much freedom for the consort of a Princess, instead, on weekends, this mild mannered psychiatrist sheds his suit and tie, slaps on his safety goggles and assumes the guise of… Project Nerd, Domestic Superhero. Tim tackles everything around the house: faster than a speeding motorist on work-release at the jail, he installs landscaping (complete with drip irrigation), more powerful than the locomotive he craves beneath his feet, he sweeps, cleans and repairs the gutters, and is able to fell sick trees in a single blow (chopping them into firewood for the winter). Look! Up in the rafters! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Project Nerd installing an attic fan. By 9 am on a Sunday, my husband has done more than I’ll even think about doing the entire week. (I never did understand that Army commercial. Is getting up before dawn to work your butt off really supposed to be a selling point?) I call it Tim’s pesky Protestant work ethic, and give thanks every day that I have not been saddled with one myself.

I don’t want to give the impression that Tim is an angel. Far from it. He takes full advantage of his knowledge of, well, everything and uses my slothfulness against me every chance he gets. For example: I’m always too hot. Unless it’s winter, then, I’m always too cold. Yes, part of the problem during that latter time of year is that I don’t move around much, but still, regulating my body heat is not one of my strong suits and I don’t think I should be penalized for having a disability. Tim thinks I should get bundled up in the winter. He says I should walk around in a sweater - in my own house! To me, that smacks too much of getting dressed. I maintain I should be able to wear only my pajamas to keep comfortable and I’m more than willing to make the concession of switching to flannels, but Tim thinks it wasteful to keep the heat up as high as I’d like.

When we first lived together, he noticed the temperature on the thermostat was always higher when he got home after work. But, superheroes don’t argue, they swing effortlessly between buildings, fly around the earth to change the course of time, thwart armed divisions without any artillery of their own. A domestic superhero simply waits out his wife out until she finally has to leave the house. Then, he installs a fancy, new, totally incomprehensible to her, thermostat. It took me months to even figure out where the “override” button was. By then, he had brought home a newer, even more incomprehensible gadget.

Thus began the Thermostat Wars which continue to this day. Just when I seem to have finally bested my enemy, Tim escalates the conflict by procuring even newer technology, and the skirmishes begin all over again with my small arms desperately trying to defuse the situation. Détente does not work with my husband. He simply refuses to negotiate, even when I force him to bear witness to my pathetic attempts at staying warm by snatching up an unsuspecting cat and sucking the heat out of my unhuman shield. But, I am no match for Tim’s superior superpowers, so am forever consigned to a state of perpetual nonthermeostasis.

Although, I did achieve a small victory after a deliciously satisfying escalation in hostilities the time we visited his father in Arkansas several years ago.
Maybe that’s where Tim gets his crazy ideas. Bob worked his entire life as a mail carrier, finally got to retire, and what does he do? Buys a small farm in a small town in Arkansas, running it by himself, so he can work harder than he ever has. The first time we visited him was in July. July. In Arkansas. In fairness to Bob, he did have the air conditioning turned on. Just not nearly high enough. Tim was quick to point out the irony of the fact that the number that would have made me positively ecstatic in winter was reducing me to abject misery in summer.

“Oh, PULEASE,” I cried. Everyone knows that 76 degrees in winter, is not equivalent to 76 degrees in summer.” Project Nerd was unmoved. Fortunately for me, farm life requires that one go to bed right after dinner. So, after Bob retired that first evening, I lowered his pitiful thermostat, a relic from a pre-Industrial past I had no difficulty whatsoever decoding after years of on-the-job training living with his son. Unfortunately for me, however, farm life also requires getting up much earlier than I could possibly consider and the luxuriating in bed I so looked forward to on vacations was marred by rolling around in my own sweat by morning. Bob had already been awake for hours and had raised the temperature to a post-nuclear level. At least I had those few dark hours before dawn, which was more than I ever got in my own house.