Pulling a U-Haul is often necessary for a cross-country
move, but it’s definitely not ideal. The trailer's unwieldy, the towing vehicle becomes slow to accelerate, and every
hill feels like a struggle. Our
particular trailer had a delightful tic: when you turned on the right blinker
in the car, the trailer’s right blinker went on, and when you turned on the
car’s left blinker—the trailer’s right blinker went on. We didn’t report this to U-Haul while
on the road for fear they’d make us unload the whole damn thing and switch it out
for a new one. Under those
circumstances, the blinker situation didn’t seem all that bad.
But as mentioned previously, our biggest issue was fear of U-Haul
theft. I think any rational person would share that concern if they had all
their personal belongings in one tin-shed-on-wheels. And if Neal and I have a motto for travel, real estate, or
life in general, it’s this: Trust No One.
For me, this has been a learned position, a result of life
experience. After being
robbed—twice—while living abroad, I had no choice but to wise up. Later on in my travels, when a Spanish
kid (barely a teenager) on a bike approached me to ask what time it was, I was
ready for him. I wasn’t wearing a
watch—he could see that—and knew I’d have to reach for my phone. Sure enough, when I did, he made to
snatch the phone out of my hand. Older
and wiser, I yanked my arm away quickly.
He rode away empty-handed. I’d
learned not to trust anyone, not even a baby-faced kid on a bike.
A year after my abroad experience, I moved to New York
City. Happily, in my four-and-a-half
years there I was never "taken in," pick-pocketed, or worse. That’s largely due to luck, I know, and
the fact that New York isn’t as bad as some would lead you to believe. But I like to think that it was also
due in part to being cautious, to being skeptical of any stranger who
approached me, no matter what they looked like. (A nun who used to collect money blocks from my office—“for
the children”—was most certainly not a nun. Her habit may have told one story, but her hard-edged features
and raspy whiskey voice told another.
Sure enough, she was exposed as a fraud by a local newspaper about a year after
I first began ignoring her pleas for “donations.”)
Neal fared nearly as well as I did in New York. (There was one incident on the subway--a drug-addled man demanding money.
Fortunately, both my husband and his wallet escaped unscathed.) “New York inspired the craziness in
me,” Neal said to me on our cross-country trip, then amended his statement. “Actually,
it was probably always there. New
York just brought it out.”
The “craziness” he was referring to was this business about
the trailer. Neal was
convinced someone was going to steal it.
He has other, lesser fears too.
Such as, that the weight of the trailer (which we named Joan) would cause
his car (Roger) to permanently sag in the back. Each day we faced the impossible debate: once we checked in at
the day’s hotel, and wanted to go elsewhere, did we bring Joan or leave her in
the parking lot?
Enter the cinderblock.
If it wasn’t enough that we were traveling with all of our worldly possessions
(save for our cat, who was on summer vacation at my parents’ house) we carried
a fucking cinderblock with us from Ann Arbor, and took it all the way to
Seattle. (Anyone know how to
properly dispose of a cinderblock, by the way?) The purpose of the cinderblock was twofold. First, if Joan and Roger were hooked
together overnight, the block was placed under Joan’s tongue so that some of
the pressure was off Roger. This
was not recommended in the U-Haul manual.
This was a crazy ritual we imposed on ourselves, so that every day,
sometimes multiple times a day, Neal would have to position himself with his
hands on the tongue of the trailer, say, “One, two, three…” and on “three”
would heave the trailer up while I shoved the cinderblock under it.
Second, the cinderblock also served as anchor/security system
when we left Joan behind. It took
both of us to lift Joan up and off the hitch. Then, we’d hook and lock her chains to the cinderblock. Again, this procedure was performed
every day, often more than once a day.
In Missoula, I got grease on my shirt during this process,
right before we were headed out to dinner. I ran back up to the hotel room uttering a stream of
curses. After dinner, while in my
new outfit, I strained my wrist during the lift and spent the rest of the
evening with a bag of ice on it.
I’m happy to report there was no lasting damage and my wrist was just
fine the next day. Which may have been
a teensy bit disappointing, since a cast definitely would have gotten me out of
trailer duty for the remainder of our trip.
Postscript: Joan was
turned into a Seattle U-Haul facility with no major problems. The wonky signals were a result of bad
wiring on the part of the hitch installer. She is not missed.
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