Trailer Living (Nov. 2009)

It’s been some time since I wrote so I am going to go back in time and try to fill you in on recent developments.

Episode 1: Trailer Living

We’ve been doing fairly well, though the cramped quarters force much more football and stock market tickertape into my days than I’m used to.

Adjusting to the train and other noises has gone okay, though there are exceptions. One weeknight in November, Brian had a particularly restless night. This involves him tossing and turning and making vague speech-like noises while I lie there wondering if I would be within my rights to kill him.

I finally got up to read my book and study the house plans in the living room. Hours later, the alarm went off and Brian arose, looking for fresh, hot coffee.

Now normally, whoever gets up first makes coffee. However, I was feeling bitter. So, there was no coffee despite the fact that I had been up for hours.

That got Brian a bit resentful as he stumbled around groggily with the filters and water jug to get the java flowing. He quickly found that the coffee maker would not turn on. He tried another outlet. Still no luck. Proclaiming, “The coffee maker is broken,” he stomped outside in his bathrobe and galoshes to have a cigarette in the very cold, still-dark morning.

Hmmm. Nothing like a challenge to get me going. I took the coffee pot to the bathroom and plugged it in there. No luck. Tried another outlet in the living room. No luck. The main power to the trailer was fine, so this was mysterious. Finally tried an outlet in the bedroom and voila! Coffee.

Not sure why, but several of our outlets had decided to stop working. Oh, well. That’s just part of the mystery of living in the trailer, right? Some things work. Others don’t. Some start working after not working. It’s a relationship of faith, where we don’t really understand the details of how anything works, but we hope for the best.

Brian returned from his brisk smoke break to the smell of coffee brewing. I was still cranky, but at least he could get some caffeine to better cope. He moved on to the next big project of the morning: showering.

I continue to read my book, trying to take deep breaths and get geared up for the day on 2 hours of sleep. Soon I heard Brian grouch out “There’s no water.”

“No hot water?” I respond.
“No. NO water,” he says, getting out the shower and trying the bathroom tap. He was right. Not a drop.

We looked at each other.

“Any chance we didn’t pay the water bill?” Brian asks.

This completely stumps me. We’re used to being on a well, so the whole water/sewer bill that comes every two months (not frequently enough to get on the normal bill-paying schedule) is new. I know I’ve paid it once but that was…I don’t remember when. Some time ago.

“It’s possible. Where would a water bill be?” I ask. Now, we are crammed in this trailer trying foolishly to replicate our lives in a real house. That means we have fishing gear (vest, waders, tackle boxes, fly rods, etc.) and shelves of books, games, a small spinning wheel, several knitting projects, bags of yarn, two dogs, a dog bed, two computers, house plans, several binders with all the details of subcontractors and building materials, along with actual samples of building materials – formica, tile, roofing. You get the picture.

Those of you who have been in my car (or my room in college) know that I am not an organized person. Mentally, yes. Physically, no. Stuff seems to gravitate to me and pile up in heaps everywhere I go. It’s nice in a way. Everything is always close at hand. But it is sometimes difficult to put my fingers on exactly what I’m looking for.

I quickly give up looking for the water bill and come up with a new idea.

“Maybe the water line is frozen. It’s pretty cold out, right?”

“Yeah, but the water is under pressure in the hose. It really shouldn’t freeze.”

We scurry around trying to get ready for work with no running water and a frail hope that we’ll somehow figure out what the problem is through some kind of psychic osmosis while away from the trailer. Yes. That is our actual plan.

I get a call from Brian later in the day. He abandoned the psychic osmosis plan and bravely called the water company to ask if we missed paying our bill. Now, the water company supports the town we live in, which is made up of about 14,000 people. The water guy’s response? “I have no idea. The gal who has access to the records is out today. We’ll just go by and take a look and see what’s going on.”

Two hours later they call Brian back. They’ve gone to the house, at no charge, and figured out that regardless of whether or not we’d paid our water bill, the water was still turned on and the pipe connecting to the trailer hose had been frozen. They let him know that it was thawing nicely and there didn’t seem to be any problems.

How nice is that? Hats off to the Gladstone, Oregon Public Works people.

Personally, I didn’t care about the situation being quickly resolved. I was off on another road trip for work. But I’m glad Brian didn’t suffer any more than he had to. While I was away, he got a heating wire from Home Depot and taped it to the water hose so we could withstand future cold weather.

See! We’re starting to get this whole trailer thing down. I’m sure of it. Nothing else could possibly go wrong, right?