Fugawetribe

The names have been changed to protect the innocent; let’s say they’re “Dennis” and “Marge.”

Marge came down the street and banged on my door; she said “Dennis needs your help, the cat’s trapped under the bed!”

OK…in an RV you simply lift the bed and let the cat out. But no… Dennis had installed a king-size bed and as part of the project had covered what had been walk-around space. And somewhere along the way Cat #1 hopped in that space.

How anyone could cover the space and not notice a huge orange-and-white cat is beyond me. But it was like the first scene of “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

By the time I got there Dennis was sitting there with the heavy mattress over his head trying to get the screws out of the top panel. I don’t know why people use a four-inch screw when a one-inch screw would do, but he’s already rounded off a couple of screw heads so that panel wasn’t coming off. I noticed that the end panel could be removed and got those screws out, probably because I didn’t have a heavy mattress on my head.

A few minutes later and the cat’s out.

While Dennis was reinstalling the end panel he told Marge to count the critters. “One dog, second dog, one cat…um….

We looked around, searched under furniture for eyeballs..no cat. There’s only one place Cat #2 could be.

Sure enough!

This zippy little thing is pretty cool. It has roughly the same HP and weight as my old VW Bug and the same wheelbase as my old Gremlin…as in it’s about as wide as it is long. It’ll swap ends in a heartbeat; ya gotta pay attention. Fun little beast.

I went off to town and got tars today. Y’know, them black rolly things. Didn’t get China bombs, didn’t get that chubby Michelin man that comes pre-cracked; got good ol’ ‘Murican Goodyears. Probably made in a non-Murican country. But you know what, we won’t live long enough to expire the warranty. Ain’t that a kicker.

And we got a new convertible top. I read that Chevy never published directions for removing the convertible top…which apparently wasn’t convertible…and in a rare moment of candor stated that if you removed the convertible top you’d never get it on again. I think “convertible” is supposed to mean something different, but…

I needed only the windows. The manufacturer said they only provided them as warranty items but I might get a dealer to order them. Three windows for $70 each. Or simply buy the back top with all three windows and the front top for $208.

That was an outrageously friggin bear to put on! They suggested I have a helper; I needed four helpers! But me and Mom finally got it on, tightly, correctly and straight. For some reason our happy hour drinks consisted of +1 vodka. Can’t imagine why. And our second and third. Mom’s cousin messaged her today to drink lots of fluids; if she only knew…

Ribbet!

After years of renting and bumming cars from people to go to town for shopping trips we finally found and bought a toad! (towed vehicle)

It follows us everywhere.

We couldn’t tow anything with Miss Lueffie and while the Queen’s Barge could tow it wasn’t really all that necessary; we could simply take the Barge to town. Now it’s a bit more difficult since we’re under a steel pole barn and it takes a 100-point turn to get in or out. Besides, an $8500 transmission and $3000 control box last September kinda put the damper on spending lots more money.

In any event, the stars converged and we found a lightweight easily-towable vehicle right sorta nearby in Houston, a Chevy Tracker. It’s a little roller skate with four wheel drive and Mom’s sewing machine has more horsepower. It’s a bit squirrelly over 60 mph (it wants to swap ends) and it accelerates in furlongs-per-fortnight but it’ll do fine. It reminds me of my old VW Bug.

I’d been looking for a Suzuki Sidekick / Geo Tracker / Chevy Tracker for a while and they’re thin on the ground; what I was finding was unsuitable models, too ragged out or hundreds of miles away. This one turned up nearby and two days later we adopted her.

We borrowed Tiffany’s pickup for the jaunt down to Houston. Now understand, we’re not city people. Our idea of a big city is Navasota, Texas or Cleveland, Georgia. Houston is another planet, like Atlanta. And it was very much like Atlanta except that other drivers indicated that we were #1 only a couple of times. And their horns worked ok.

All’s well that ends well and we ended up back at the ranch with a new member of the family. What’ll we name her, The Queen’s Dinghy? That sounds pretty good especially if you read it out loud a couple of times.