“Since the mattress debacle I’ve developed a sixth sense around when something is going to fall out of the truck bed and I’ve stepped up my game with rope. Yet today, tailgate down to accommodate the infamous pink & orange studio couch, I felt a twinge. A twinge that told me that my carefully jerry rigged manual tie-down was heading for a fail. Which left me only one option. To put on big girl pants and face the dreaded ratchet straps. Yes, I’d bought them last month, used them once to pick up a wood stove, but made the seller untangle them, hook them & employ the ratchet. This, despite the fact that I had watched and rewatched a YouTube video entitled: “How To Use a Ratchet Strap in Under Two Minutes”. I’m slow with new technology. Ask anyone who has sold me electronic gear and asked me a year later how I like it, only to be subjected to my sheepish grin, and admission that it’s still in the box. I’m a bad liar, and so I don’t even try anymore. What’s fabulous though, is that I’ve been around Central VT long enough to know where I can pull off the road, have a little privacy, and struggle without being watched too closely, as I attempt something most guys around these parts already know how to do. But close enough to those same guys, that if the struggle goes past five minutes, it’s a sure thing some asshole will come over to help me. And I’ll be quietly grateful. Thank you Pump & Pantry, in Williamstown. Where I also was able to get a coffee, and “cherry pie”, that comes in individual servings pre-packaged for someone on-the-go. It’s been so long since I had junk food. People don’t really spend much time thinking about people like me, nor should they. But thanks to a lot of trauma, I can’t cover my mouth, or talk very well, or use a phone. Go figure. Don’t bother telling me how odd it is, I know all about my handicaps by now. And you form new alliances when you find yourself marginalized, with strange bedfellows, like today when a guy pulled up to the pump in front of me with an oversized cargo of old tires. He went in, with his son, and I just went in after them. I guess after this year, you might say I look marginal, too. My hair is a bit matted in the back, the patches on my jeans are giving way to more extensive rips. The people I see up at the house, as it empties out, and I slowly leave my life here, they’re workmen of all trades: plumbers, fixers, carpenters, knaves. I don’t know when they’ll arrive or how long they’ll stay. As I pack, and clean, and organize my removal, they chit chat, and philosophize, as only independent contractors can. It feels free and easy, and well earned. I’ve also earned ... something. Not exactly sure what, but when men come up against a heavy object, they push and jimmy and don’t back down, only delay if they have to, and that’s what I’ve learned. You keep going, because you have to. You’ve promised it to your kids, and polished your ability to survive, as if your life depended on it. Because, frankly, it does. They don’t want to see you drop the sink. It’s a good 250 pounds on a dry day, and you’ve done worse. Way worse. Now all you have to do is sign the deal on a few acres of wilderness, and start your life again. It’s really not that hard.”
