So....I recently have come to the realization that I have some major faults. These major faults came to my awareness when I recently joined a friend on a trip to Napa, California to help him move back to this area. Some of these faults are that I am a sucker, I have no ability to say no, and that I am quite the pushover. At first, these faults may seem endearing and not "major" faults. That being said, let me tell you about the trip.
John, being the frugal fella that he is, decided it would be cheaper to drive a U-haul down and back than pay for the one-way price. When we went to pick up the 26' truck, I thought that we had taken a wrong turn and ended up in a salvage yard where someone had accidentally spray-painted some WWII relics with the U-haul orange and white. This P.O.S. vehicle had no cigarette lighter where I could plug in my Ipod, and the knobs were missing off the stereo. I did not realize that knobs off of a 1977 Philco am/fm were still in high demand. It didn't matter anyways, as the speaker that was hanging loosely from the wall behind me looked like at one time it had doubled as an ashtray, and someone had accidentally spilled a Mcdonald's strawberry shake down the front of it. I cannot even explain how uncomfortable the seat was. It was as if someone had decided that the seat off a buckboard would be a perfect fit for this old International chunk of crap. Fourth gear only worked about 1 our of 4 times that you shifted into it, and when you stepped on the brakes, the headlights dimmed to almost no visibility. I knew that I was in for a wonderful trip.
John had promised me that the trip would take no longer than 8 hours from Junction City to Napa. Once we reached the hills of Southern Oregon, I knew that John had no idea of what he was talking about. It took us almost 5 hours to reach the border. At this rate the southern trip was going to take around 12 hours. I almost used the sharp exposed metal on the broken window handle to slit my wrists and put me out of my misery.
Going over the hills, we slowly decreased from a speed of 50mph to around 20mph. Fully loaded semis flew by us as if we were headed the opposite direction. Around Shasta I looked out the window and we were being passed on the sidewalk by an octogenarian in a Rascal.
When we finally reached Napa around 11pm that night, we met up with John's father-in-law, and a parishioner of his church named Don. My introduction to Don by John's father-in-law went like this, "Don, this is Harold. He is a Christian as well!" I did not know what to say other than "Yup!" I had never been introduced that way. It was surreal. What was going through my mind was, "Don, this is Harold. He is an ultra-conservative, Republican, judgmental, homophobic, opinionated, fable-believing, over-bearing fella, just like us!" (Alright, other than the homophobic part, I might fall into most of those factors.) We then loaded up the truck, and proceeded back to his in-laws house.
To top off that evening, we were forced by the fellow Christians to spend the night at his in-laws. I had visions of a hotel room, a dirty movie, boxer shorts, pizza sauce on my hairy chest, and an empty half-rack of Rolling Rock. Instead I got a lumpy couch, a pillow that resembled a handful of cotton balls stuffed into a sock, and a sleeping bag that wouldn't fit around a 12-year old anorexic midget, let alone my obese frame. By morning, I had the pillow rolled up under my neck, and was wearing the sleeping bag as a loin cloth.
Thursday morning I was told that we had about 15 minutes worth of loading left, and we would be on our way back home. Two hours later, we finally finished loading. Thus, we started our trip back up I-5. For about an hour, I was so tired of sitting on the seat in the truck that I actually got out and walked. Unfortunately, I had to slow my pace rather than get too far ahead of John and all his earthly belongings.
I am not usually the kind of guy that talks bad about his friends, (Ha! I am a dick, and actually do it all the time.) but let me tell you how rough it is not to find things that bother you about someone after you have been smelling their farts, listening to their belches, and hearing them sing along to bands like Culture Club for a dozen or so hours.
John, who is now a public bus driver never seemed to get out of the left lane. Even when we were going 20mph over the mountains, we were in the left lane. We had cars and semi-trucks passing us on the right. I felt like an extra in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. There were birds flying everywhere. After about 3 hours of left lane action, I asked John what he was doing. He said that he was tired of passing all the semis. It was ironic that at that time we were being passed on the right by a fully loaded one.
I wont go into the rest of the details of him and his wife fighting, our political arguments, hours of sports talk that I found hard to tune out, and fast food for every meal that bound me up so tight that I crapped out a duraflame log this morning. I will only end with telling you that I am a changed man. I will no longer volunteer for anything, I will no longer go out of my way to be friendly, and I will no longer say yes to anybody without fully researching whatever they are proposing.
The next time that I move, I am calling in every favor from all the people that I have helped move over the years. If they fail to help me, I will write a blog about the times that I have had with them.