Happy Fathers Day

I hope all the dads out there get a chance to tie something to their car.

Yes, you dads with the subconscious love of attaching various items to your car.

I don’t think that my husband is unique in finding so much satisfaction from successfully adhering objects to our vehicle. There were signs of this fanatical obsession soon after we were married and we had to pack our generous load of wedding gifts to go back to our home from the small town where the wedding took place. I think we even borrowed a truck for that. The precision and obsessive way that Mark had to pack the variety of boxes and packages clued me into an aspect of his personality I had not yet seen. Almost a year later, Mark received a hard plastic, non-folding lawn chair for his birthday. We had to find a way to transport it home in our smallish car. The joy on Mark’s face at the prospect of roping that chaise onto the roof of the car was more evident than when he received the chair. Out came the yellow rope that lashed its way, zigzag, across the roof and chair and down around the interior in such a way we were unable to completely close our windows.

I worry about things like what would happen if a dislocation should occur at 60 mph? 70 mph? I think about things like road flotsam etiquette and do you have to stop your car and collect bits and pieces that are clearly no longer of any use? Also worth considering were my concerns of possible roof-top paint scratching, but my query was met with such an exasperated look I remained in mute wonderment.

We have gone on to transport many items on our vehicle rooftops. Mattresses have always caused the most worry for me as they are usually something that was expensive and heavy and very unwieldy. Mattresses are also somewhat personal and when they are being transported along a busy highway it feels as though you are exposed to the world, like you are showing off your underwear. Mattresses also have the propensity to “catch air” and float away from the car, or fold in half toward the back of the car. Who hasn’t observed a highway mattress display themselves, with flopping, semi-airborne mattress holding on by its toenails as a family zoomed down the highway, oblivious to the impending doom. I have once seen a pile of rubbish at the side of the highway that, upon closer inspection, was the remains of a mattress. I wondered if the owners had stopped to morn the loss of the new mattress, or just kept on driving, only to arrive home and wonder at what point their lashing had let go.

Mark eventually bought himself some fancy red nylon straps with a special block and tackle type apparatus that tightens things so snug to the car, there isn’t a chance they could separate themselves, even at 75 mph. Then I wonder about things like aerodynamics and gas mileage. A few years ago we got real slick and purchased a long, sleek rocket box. You’ve seen them before, attached to the roof racks of cars. The first time we used ours, Mark wanted to be sure that the maximum recommended weight was accurate. He proved this by jamming in every Christmas gift we were bringing to Canada that year. At one point along our journey I slid open the sun roof to peek at how ol’ rocket box was doing. I was horrified by the bobbing, bouncing action that was taking place. In my mind, something that heavy should not be so energetically heaving up and down. Mark noticed my look of horror and assessed the situation. He slowly slid the sunroof shut, not wanting to see what was taking place only inches from our heads, but somewhere deep inside, I know that he was overjoyed at the prospect of propelling that weight at that speed. I spent the rest of the trip imagining all of Christmas fanning out across the three lanes of east bound traffic, rolling and deflecting and smashing off one another. Would we stop to shovel up the mess, or continue on and act as though we were unaware of the catastrophic mayhem in our wake?

As soon as we obtained a vehicle that had enough juice to actually pull something behind it, Mark’s thoughts turned to something that could attach to a hitch. He long dreamed of the day he could have a trailer. Nothing fancy, just something that you could rope and lash other stuff into and attach to the back of the vehicle as sort of an appendage to your vehicle. The realization of extra axels was a dream come true for hubby. It came in the form of a boat trailer, with a boat of course.

Jamming that boat full to its canvas cover was heaven! The big guy spent a whole day making sure that there was not one vacant cranny or nook in that boat after we sold our house and headed north to the cottage. Not only was it filled with various cottage-y items and junk the movers refused to take, like our collection of various types of liquor, but also plants I had divided from my garden.

After getting a driveway full of junk into the boat I swear I could hear the trailer axels groaning. This baby had to last the 8 hour journey. I had to sweat out the whole trip as I could not shake that recurring nightmare of belongings spewing across the highway. Not only that, but we had to cross the border with contraband hostas and daylilies, not to mention the liquor. If they had decided to inspect that boat, we would have been two days getting all the junk out and then back in and I’m sure buy the end of the extrication process, we would have a crowd of Canadian customs agents gathered round in amazement at the volume of stuff coming out of the boat, and how much of it was illegal.

Now that the boat has found permanent placement at the cottage, we had lost the extra axels. Not anymore, not after this Father’s Day. We are the proud owners of a new trailer again, a trailer that you can pack right full of junk. A trailer with special rings on the walls and floor, so one can run miles of red nylon strapping over and around just about anything you can put in that thing.

As we plan on our 24 hour drive to the cottage this month, I know that the man of this house is dreaming about packing that trailer with anything he can think of. I’m sure he is mentally planning how he’s going to run the straps, about what’s going in the front, the back, bottom and top. He has already spent a day building special brackets to hold the wheels of the dirt bikes in place. Don’t worry, he’ll still use the straps on the top of the bikes.

This guy is going to enjoy hauling every square inch of that thing across 5 states and one province. For 24 hours I will have to live with that same fear I have had since I got married, the fear of household flotsam being liberated at 70 mph across all lanes of an interstate highway. But I’ll keep that to myself the whole time, and let this dad enjoy the rewards of vehicle attachments.

I hope all the dads out there get the chance to attach something to their car and be happy.