THOUGHTS OF A POET IN THE RAIN

I started to write this on Sunday, 12/15 and then find I am finishing it on Monday 12/16 at 2AM. It is just been busy here trying to get ready for a short trip in the RV. We’ve been cleaning and repairing and more cleaning and fighting about the cleaning and the repairing and looking for the two mice that I saw and am sure I chased out of the RV. Our neighboring RV owners have told me when I’ve run into them that they discovered they had mice too!

One of our neighbors told me that his mice actually ate through a whole bag of ant poison. I told him that surely if any ant were to bite one of those mice it would kill the ant instantly. None of us know where the mice came from. One other RV owner told me that a mouse, rat, something actually ate into a container of oil he had in one of his below deck storage compartments. It leaked all over the compartment. We did find they had eaten into a container of widow cleaner but not much else. We had no food on board except for microwaveable soup containers like tomato soup in single serving containers.

Had to replace a headlight on the RV and the overhead bathroom vent fan as it was rotted out. The headlight had to be replaced because the plastic lens cover was lost somewhere along I-75 between here and Albany, GA. The RV manufacturer lied to me about the headlight. They told me the headlight was specially made for our RV and that I could only buy it from them. BS…. BS…. BS… it is a Lincoln Navigator headlight and it had to be “modified” to make it fit the hole in the front of the RV. I found this out after I called Newmar (the manufacturer of our Scottsdale unit) and asked them about installing the headlamp as there were no instructions sent and it didn’t fit. The parts guy said, “Oh, well you have to modify it.”

Modify it? Well, that’s what I asked…. “Modify it?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “We buy them and then modify them, the light, so it can fit the RV.”
I was pissed. I bought the headlight for $325 from them and could have gotten it from NAPA for $175.

And, modify it I did. Took me three frigging days of modifications to get the headlight installed. I had to cut here, cut there, cut a whole in the RV’s shell next to the headlight, sand, saw, buff, curse…. lots of cursing required… applications of glue that didn’t stick to anything but my fingers and other things that got stuck to my fingers … but not the damn headlight sticking to the RV.

Now, you are probably wondering about “why didn’t you just screw in screws and be done with it.” Good question. First off there were NO screw holes in the back of the headlight for installing it. Second there was (or is) NO room behind the hole for the headlight to be able to actually see what you are doing or install a screwdriver to install the damn headlight.

It took me 3 days…3 frustrating days … to get a screw in one hole that I drilled…. 3 days. I had to almost stand on my head in order to reach inside and get a screw into the hole while trying to hold a nut to attach to it. Well, It seems secure and I certainly hope it is. I am going to be really pissed if I lose this one while driving.

Anyway, that, the mice, the fact that it is Monday and no longer Sunday pretty much sums up the last month for me. I’m sure tomorrow will be better except that Obama is still president. I’ll feel a lot better when he is no longer in office.