Orlando Cat Show: The Trip Begins

 

            In the glorious words of Shakespeare, “Zounds!”  Are we fated?  Will the Cousin Eddie label never be lifted from this beaten body?  Are things still going to go wrong, even in a beautiful new RV, one just as big as the one Robin Williams drove in that film all RVers saw last fall?

            I’m not even going to mention the fact that the cat show people never looked twice at Diane’s beautiful new collection of Faerieland Cats, all of them under $20.00, and perfect for Cat lovers.  I mean, just look at one of them:

 

 

            See?  Each faery takes care of the little lost kittens of the world.  They do good deeds and earn their own faerywings, just like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life.  What Cat Lover could resist?  Cheap Florida Cat Lovers, that’s who!

 

            But okay.  So maybe the business isn’t going well.  We expected that in today’s economy.  “But the economy is booming,” they say on the radio.  Sure it’s booming.  Anybody who can afford to invest $50,000 or more in America’s corporations can make money.  Those of us who can’t invest, well, we can sit home in our uninsured houses and look around for second or third jobs to pay for our rising taxes, and our gasoline, and our medicine, and all the things those same corporations are using to steal from the poor and give to the rich.

            But we have no Robin Hood to help us.  Hell, we don’t even have a Zorro.  He can’t get into the country because the immigration laws are keeping him in Mexico.

 

            I’m not even complaining about Crystals cute little kittens that crawled into the bowels of the dashboard, doing I don’t know what mischief to the wiring of the camper.  Hey, if they didn’t get electrocuted, we’re even.

 

            No, it’s a couple of little things.  Things that shouldn’t happen in a brand new camper—like the plastic latch that hold opens the door breaking in the wind:

 

 

 

            And if that’s not bad enough, get a load of this.  A few hours ago, I’m sitting outside, making my Akins diet steak on a $9.95 Big Lots version of the George Foreman grill.  My high protein diet gets too much grease in the camper, so I have to cook outside.  Yesterday, Diane came out to eat with me, but she got mad because I rocked back on our double seat camp couch to free the paper plate I had pinned to the grass with my couch leg to keep from blowing away.  How was I to know Diane’s Tortellinis would spill all over her lap?  She had black pants on, so the tomato sauce didn’t really stain too badly.  I don’t think it was too hot by the time she got the kids fed and brought her own dinner outside.

            Anyway, I was sitting by my little electric grill and I looked up at the rear tire of my camper.  Son of a well, you know what I mean, there was a lug nut missing! 

 

 

            Do you see it there, around 7:00?  I guess we were lucky the damned tired didn’t fall off back on the highway.  Like Jerry Falwell, we could have been called to the bosom of the Lord!  These things aren’t supposed to happen on brand new, fully warranted campers!

            Curiously, I put my hand on the opposite nut at about 1:00.  I opened it with my bare hand!

            Holy cow.  I proceeded to wade through the hatch where I suspected a lug wrench might be kept.  Finding it, took it to the tire, only to see the wrench was way too small to  that be?  I removed the hand tightened bolt completely and soon learned the truth.  Those two bolts held the hubcap on!  Beneath the hub cap, all the real lug nuts were safe and secure.  The only danger we were really in was of losing one of our hubcaps.

            Okay.  I tightened up the one good nut and I figure I can get another one at an RV place on the road tomorrow.  Everything should be fine, but oh, why, why do such things happen to me?  Okay, it’s not just me, really.  Today, Crystal went for a walk with Freddy and stepped on a shard of glass that went through her shoe and punctured her foot.  Freddy bandaged her up and they went on a bike ride, where she proceeded to get stung by a bee.  She’s sleeping now, wiped out by the Bendryl Freddy quickly bought from the drugstore.

            Now that he’s a high school graduate, he is certainly dependable.

 

 

            That’s right.  Friday night was Freddy’s graduation.  We’re very proud of him.  Instead of going to a big graduation party, we rushed home Friday after the ceremony and finished packing up the camper, then took off for the Orlando cat show, where we grossed about $60.00 in sales.  I said, gross, not profit!  Gross!  That’s gross all right.

 

            Right now, we’re at a Walmart about 60 miles into South Carolina.  I jury rigged (as usual) the lug nut on our tire.  I couldn’t find anything that fit at Wal-Mart and today being Memorial Day, couldn’t find anything else open.  I jammed on a washer and a standard lug nut, with lots of Locktite and it held all day (knock on wood).

            Nothing much today.  We spent the whole time on the road.  I had my usual hamburger dinner outside on the grass with my little grill, while the girls made dinner for themselves and Freddy inside the camper. 


            I’m not entirely sure what they were cooking, but our Chihuahua, Pookah, looked extremely nervous, like he thought part of him might be tomorrow’s dinner.

Chapter Three