BLACKOUT! ONT

I don't want them to hear me. The mobs are restless and violent, but so far they seem to think that the house is deserted, and I want to keep it that way. No lights. I have the front gate and street access pretty well covered from my hide, and Little is prone on the living room floor under a blanket. He's got the deer rifle zeroed on the edge of the lake, well back from the patio doors, so I think he's out of sight. Gingy is hunkered down halfway between us with quik-clot, bandages, spare mags and her AR. Be very quiet...

Just kidding, although we are without power. We had a much needed storm blow through this morning, but it knocked out the power and it's still out. It came on for 10 seconds around 5, but then it went down again. Good news: The storm knocked the heat down so it only got up to 90 today, unlike the 100 degree plus days we've been having for the past few weeks. Bad news: No AC. If it goes on (or rather stays off) much longer I'm gonna fire up the genny to keep the freezers going. If I was any type of redneck engineer I'd have the panel wired so I could plug the genny in when something like this happens, but I'm not. I had a jackleg electrician do it for the Baltimore house (He was real good, but he'd lost his license after trouble with addiction), but he's not down here and a licensed electrician is required to install all kinds of safety locks which adds expense and I haven't done it yet. (Look, I'm smart enough not to flip this breaker on to accept generator power until after I've flipped that one off, disconnecting from the grid. It's not that hard. I'm smart enough not to stick my hand into the chute of a running lawn mower too, but I can't buy one without the dead-man's switch).

In any event, we are without power, and that includes my computer where I have all of the ONT content stored. So this is a bring-your-own content ONT. If you have any interesting links or stories, post them! Mentioning redneck engineering reminds me of something that happened to me a few days ago, so I'll start with that.

Tuesday, I bought a trailer. Not a big one, 4X8, all I need is something to take the mower up to the shop if it needs it or to haul the motorcycle around. I saw an ad on FB marketplace and scheduled to meet the guy. He's up by Lake O' the Pines, about 60 miles away, which is Texas for “close”. I get there later than intended, after 8:30, because I'd stopped off at another “close” location (40 miles away) to buy a bagger for my mower, but it was still installed on her mower so I had to take it off. It wasn't hard, but it involved me lying on my back in the dirt of the driveway blindly using wrenches up under the back of the mower while chickens pecked around my feet. In any event, it was 8:40 before I got to the trailer guy's house. Sunset.

So the trailer looks good. It's homemade, but made well. Solid. The bed is thick plastic which won't rust like metal or rot like wood. I like it. Couple of concerns. #1 There are no loops for safety chains on the trailer. I can weld some on, no problem, but there's still the problem of getting it home. Fortunately, the frame behind the hitch is a triangle with the main bar bisecting the triangle from the apex to the base. I mention my concern to the seller, and he starts rummaging through his stuff. And such wonderful stuff! He could probably build a whole car from the stuff he has lying around.

Side note: I call him a redneck, because he is. 25-30 years old, tattoos everywhere, wearing a wife beater. It's not a pejorative. He's got everything but a Fabergé egg in his yard to work with. He's got a very pretty wife and a house and STUFF! Good stuff! Frankly, if the shit hits the fan, run to him, not me. I'm an insurance agent. He's a man that can get things done. I can translate an EOB. Make your choice. Chose wisely.

Anyway he comes up with a cable with hooks on the end. That will do for one chain. He rummages more and comes up with a chain that has a hook on one end and a loop on the other, plus another length of chain. Loop the chain through the gap in the triangle, secure it with a bolt and hook the hook onto my truck and Bob's your uncle.

Issue #2. One of the tires is shot. Oh, it's holding air, but there's a deep, deep groove in it (past the steel belts). He goes off to find another tire. The one he brings back doesn't match the lugs. He thinks his friend Leo might have a matching tire, so he calls him. Meanwhile, it's now become full dark. Seller can't find a tire and rim that will fit, but suddenly remembers something. He goes off and comes back with a tire (no rim) that will fit the wheel. It's dirty from sitting on the ground, but it's damn near a brand new tire. He insists that I take it, throws it into the trailer. Won't take “Hey, I can get another tire” for an answer. So we have it all sorted, the trailer is hitched up, I've got 60 miles to go, hoping that the bad tire will hold, and it's full dark.

At this point Leo arrives. He's gotten the call from Seller and had come to see for himself how he can help. That's when problem #3 manifests, and this one is all on me. The plug on the back of my truck for the trailer lights has become damaged. One of the prongs (the ground) has broken off. The truck is plugged into the trailer, but the circuit isn't complete. The trailer's lights don't work. This is a problem when it's Texas dark outside. I have 60 miles to home, much of it on very dark back roads, and without lights on the trailer, someone could easily drive up on me and hit the trailer they didn't see.

Remember, it's full dark at this point. We're examining the wiring by cell phone flashlight. Then Leo notices something:

“Hey, the missing connection is the ground, right? If we strip this wire we can ground it to the hitch and everything will work”

I look at the wire, but it's not long enough to reach the hitch. I turn to Seller and ask “Got a length of wire?” If you think he didn't, than you haven't been paying attention. Seller comes back with the wire and I ask him “Do you have a wire stripper?” Surprisingly, he doesn't, but he asks Leo for his lighter.

Seller then proceeds to use the lighter to melt the plastic coating on the wires and strip them with his fingernails. He then wires everything up and asks me to turn on the lights of my truck.

It doesn't work. No lights on the trailer. Bummer, and we don't know why. In any event, it's time for me to leave. I've got an hour + to get home, pulling a trailer with no lights, and I need to get on the road. I go to pay Seller, and he just arbitrarily knocks $50 off the price, “For the inconvenience”. That's not right, it's not on him, but he insists. So I set out into the darkness, across 60 miles of Texas darkness, towing a trailer that nobody can see. Yippie.

It was a tense trip. Every time I saw lights in my rear view mirror, I put on my hazards. The trailer was actually low enough that following cars could clearly see my truck lights above it, my hope was that the hazards would make them look closer and see the trailer behind me. I worked my way down to Longview on the 281 loop and then had a problem. I wanted to be on 31, but the loop dead ended at US 20, an 80 MPH speedway that goes east/west. US 20 was the last road I wanted to be on with an unlit trailer riding on a bum tire, but where I was was 10 miles away from where I wanted to be. Reluctantly, I got on US 20. My hazards were on, and I was relatively crawling at 60-65 while legions of long haul truckers blew past me at 80+ MPH.

Thankfully, I made it to the exit for 31. I got onto 31 and headed home. It was now 10:30. I was almost home, but my route went past my local, which closed at 11. I'd been wound up like a yo-yo for the whole trip home so I decided to stop and have a beer. I parked the truck and trailer across some parking spaces and got out. The lights on the truck went out when I took the key out of the ignition, but the headlight switch was still in the on position. As I got out of the cab, I looked back at the trailer.

WTF?

One of the running lights on the rear of the trailer was on. I reached in and turned off the headlight switch. The trailer light went off. Headlight switch on; trailer light on. Headlight switch off; trailer light off.

WHAT IN THE EVERLOVING MOTHERFUCK? I SPENT THE LAST 90 MINUTES SWEATING MY ASS OFF WORRYING ABOUT AN UNLIT TRAILER AND NOW THIS?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

I dunno if I hit a bump that joggled something or what, but damn, that was a kick in the ass. All that stress, for nothing. Damnit!

Coda: Seller and Leo were fantastic. They both called me “sir” (as I did them), and had firm handshakes and direct gazes. They both did everything they could to make not just the sale of the trailer, but the practical application of my buying the trailer and getting it home, go well. This is the America that I grew up in, and the America I revere. To the “elites”: Dismiss people as “rednecks” if you will. They are in every way better than you.

And they will picnic on your grave.

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Hank Williams Jr.:

ETA: And now the power's back. 20 minutes isn't really enough time to do a conventional ONT, but at least I can email it from my iPad to desktop and make sure the formatting and HTML is right before I post.

posted by WeirdDave at 09:55 PM

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