Mr. Rogers' Research
Chapter 21

Copyright© 2018 by MysteryWriter

The man who owned the salvage yard had been the man who helped me with the trailer and hitch for the Scooter. He asked me what I planned to pull with the tiny metro.

“I’m thinking pop up camper. Maybe a four or five foot base. That is if I can find one that I can afford.” It might take a while to find one though.

“Or not,” my junk yard/ welder suggested. “I know you got that bad leg. Let me finish your hitch, then we can take ride to my RV parking lot,

It was about two hours later when we walked down to a side aisle. It was indeed an RV area. There was one small airstream model camper and a couple of covers for full sized pickup trucks. Also in the middle of other heavily damaged campers there sat a pop up camper which was not popped. I walked around and noted that it was far from pristine, but it didn’t show any real structural damage.

“So what do you think?” the man asked.

“I think it needs a good washing and I would expect that the frame needs greasing and checking for damage, but it would do if the price is right. I mean it would have to be a good deal cause I got no idea what it’s like inside, or if the up and down crank even works. This is nothing but a flatbed trailer with a roof that goes up and down.”

“I’ll make sure it is welded and the roof will go up and down. I got me a crap load of wheels like these. They go on boat trailers as well. Main thing you want is to store everything that you want to use in the pick up. Don’t pull too much it will make it impossible to pull straight. If it gets swinging, it could pull the car and your ass off the road, or into an eighteen wheeler.”

“Keeping all that in mind throw me a price,” I demanded.

“The best I could do would be a grand,” he said.

I actually laughed. “I don’t think so. I might would do half of that.”

“The cleaning, greasing, and finding three tires that will hold air has to be worth at least another hundred,” he said.

“Since I won’t have to run all over hell chasing one down, I’ll do the six hundred,” I agreed. I figured it was a convenience tax and dismissed it from my mind. The trailer was not perfect, but it would do. If worse came to worse I could pull the top off and use it as a lightweight flat bed trailer.

“I knew that I was spending money betting on the river card. If nothing else came my way in the research business I would be stuck with the trailer, but I wasn’t exactly betting the farm on the draw. Hell between the Geek, the FBI and their friends at the NSA I could probably get all the surveillance I needed. I would hardly need to hang out inside a tiny little trailer to watch bad guys.

That day would have been a total loss if I hadn’t bought the trailer. I stored the trailer in the rear of the parking lot. After that I sat on my ass while I waited for Sam Shovel to get his offer together. I hated the fucking down time. I wanted to keep moving since I got started moving again. Moving actually kept the worst of the pain at bay.

I cooked a miserable frozen meal for dinner. It made no difference what the frozen entree said. They all tasted the same. I knew that and still fixed them for dinner at least a couple of times a week.

I spent the evening trying to stay away from the cookie jars. I’m afraid I wasn’t successful at all. I still fought the good fight against the pounds. The doctor said that my hip would be a lot more painful, if I weighed more than ten pounds over my ideal weight. I did that routinely, then I had to diet strictly for a few weeks. Life was such a pain in the ass, literally. I thought as I munched on a delicious rice cake. Anyone who believes that about rice cakes, probably owns a time share in Aspen.

I awoke at six the next morning and began to dress in my lightweight hiking gear. I had planned a slightly more uphill path for the morning, but alas the hiking gods didn’t agree. They decided to punish me for something. It was probably for buying the Geo and the pop up. Whatever the reason the result was in a very painful mornings walk.

At least I made it around the circuit without anyone flagging me down. It was a painful hike since my OTC cocktail didn’t kick in before the overnight pain relief wore off. That being the case I was in a significant amount of pain before I made it home. I was forced to sit near the microwave while my day old coffee heated. I did enjoy the coffee, and my molasses flavored bran muffin. Even if it was not baked by Thia, the muffin was delivered by her.

After that it became work on the pop up with the phone handy. Gray called to make sure I hadn’t heard from Sam Shovel. He obviously didn’t have anything to do, since he asked me if I needed help with the trailer. I told him to come on over, but there was nothing he could do that I couldn’t. We might use different methods to accomplish the same things though.

“Okay boss, what do we do first?” Gray asked.

“We have to empty the shop first. It’s a drive through shop so open the back door then ride the scooter out. Park it beside the trailer. Then I’ll come out and we can push the trailer into the shop,” I explained.

“By 1pm we had the trailer’s lift and drop gears adjusted. We also had the trailer’s rotten canvas removed. I had never worked on a pop up before, so it was an afternoon of one step forward and a half step back. It was three pm when we had the pop up in pretty good shape. I had redesigned the canvas part of the pop up. We replaced the canvas with a curtain, not a canvas wall. It would be a case of raise the top then pull the tarp out of the Geo and walk around attaching it with bolts and wing nuts.

 
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