It started off innocently enough, me on the internet booking a 14’ Uhaul and the necessary auto transport to tow my Honda. Then the warnings came from just about everyone. “You should have gone with Penske. I got stranded in Topeka with my Uhaul.” I laughed at them saying I’d be fine, and damnit Uhual is so much cheaper. There’s a reason they’re cheaper was all they replied. My confidence was not shaken until I got a call from Hoppy, of Hoppy’s Mini Mart.
“Hello, when you want to pick up your truck and auto transport?”
“Ummm… How about tomorrow at 10?”
“Okay, I get here at 7:00am so anytime okay! I’ll have one dozen furniture pads too!”
The guy seemed nice, but I was getting a truck that will cart all of my worldly possessions 850 miles from Hoppy’s Mini Mart. Sweet.
I arrived promptly at 10am the next morning in Mountain View at the Hoppy Mart. Hoppy, a savvy veteran at dealing with (read suckering) clueless Uhaulers, sprung into action filling out paper work and selling me insurance that I probably didn’t need since my car insurance probably covers me. After we were done, he kept pacing telling me to wait for his “guy”. He couldn’t show me how to setup the truck because he works for Uhaul. He explained that if he helped and the truck turned into a fiery inferno Uhaul might be liable in some obscure way. Great, so I get Hoppy’s buddy.
“Don’t you worry, he’ll be here one minute.”
I head outside to wait and a few minutes later this guy (I can’t remember his name) drives up in a 1975 280z which is in about the same condition as Sean’s first ride. Complete with the solo stash and a conservative mullet, the man set me up right. In no time, I was driving my car up on the trailer, the straps were secured, and he was giving me what can only be the most painful words anyone embarking on an 850-mile road trip can hear:
“Whatever you do, don’t go above 60. If you go faster it may start shaking and you can get that jack knife action. You know what I mean?”
Quick math started up in my head: 60mph, 850 miles, stops to pee, eat, stretch-hell, I’m going to be in the car for longer then it took to build the pyramids!
He sniffs says it looks good, pats me on the back, and heads into the Hoppy Mart. I look into the cab and notice the other thing a man of my height loves to see—6” between the seat and the stearing wheel. I grimace, glance at the store, I think “happy” thoughts and head over to my place to load up.
The drive isn’t too bad, except for that hotel-room-smoke-cover-up stuff they’d sprayed in the interior and I arrive with little hiccups. As I pull up to my street I start to think spatially (deep I know) and my high school geometry comes rushing back. Okay, so, extremely narrow street, 14’ truck, big trailer, damn, I’m like 30’ long. I end up parking two blocks down the street and give Sean a call and he shows up a few hours later. We quickly decide that we don’t need to detach the trailer for the loading. Why? It looks hard. We do this later in Seattle and it takes 20 minutes, maximum. Instead, we spend 40 minutes trying to back it into the driveway and eventually resort to being “those guys” and park it in the middle of the street tossing on the hazards. Throughout the load I noticed about 15 people who had to back up all the way down the street, and I think 5 were able to squeeze around us with about 5 inches of clearance.
We packed with no regard to vertical space completely ignoring “Mom’s Attic” (that space above the cab),. We finished up in about an hour, and crashed that night on couch cushions and an air mattress. Blurry eyed we tossed in anything we’d missed and at 5:30am headed out onto the open road.
The trip was long and fairly uneventful up to Salem where we were going to pick up a table and some much needed nourishment from my Grandparents. But as we approached hour thirteen something started happening to us. Some might say the fanny fatigue got us but whatever it was we snapped. Searching for something I started flipping through stations on the radio and the dial landed on 24 hour Christmas music. We belted out the best rendition of Silver Bells Bessie (the name we gave our Uhaul) had ever heard.
After an incredible meal, we hit the road again and quickly made it up to Portland, crashed, and hit the road the next morning around 10. Another straight shot up to Renton, a suburb just south of Seattle, where we unloaded all my stuff at my Aunt and Uncle’s place.
The next morning when we tried to return the Uhaul to the wrong center (yeah, should have read the paper work), my heart sank while the guy tried to check us out. As I watched in disbelief, after spending 16 hours with Bessie, he did the unthinkable:
He slid the seat back.
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