Trifter

I haven’t made many mistakes in life, but the mistakes I’ve made have been big enough to make up for my lack in amount. Quality over quantity, I always say. One such mistake was moving to New Brunswick, Canada to be with a girl I had only known online. Yes, young dumb and full of… tenacity. In any case, since we went straight from online to living together, it was probably inevitable that we split up, though it took nearly two years before that time. When the final straw broke the camel’s back and made the fat lady sing till the cows came home, I was left with a dilemma more mind numbing than a bunch of overused sayings in one sentence: How do I get my stuff home without Customs deciding to tax it or take it?

Fortunately for me I had friends in Ontario just a couple hours from my home in New York. I could drop off my things with them and collect them little by little after visiting. What a relief that would be! So, the plan was set into motion. I went home to New York for a bit to get things straightened for my return, and then grabbed one of my friends to co-pilot the Search and Extract mission. The Plan: Return to New Brunswick, pack my belongings, travel north of the border down to Southern Ontario and drop off my many things, then head home with just a portion of them so as not to be bothered by Customs agents. It was genius. Fool proof. Magnificent.

The first part of Operation Cheattheborder went off without a hitch. We made great time from New York to New Brunswick, even proving that a Mazda 626 could, in a fit of road rage and dangerous speeds, beat a Camaro (or at least make the driver scared enough to stay clear of us). We arrived at the ex’s place and slept. Phase one complete.

Phase two: I packed my belongings into a few duffle bags and said my goodbyes. Phase two went perfectly.

Phase Three: Long drive, eh? My co-pilot and I made good time through a good chunk of Canada, despite some blizzard like conditions. Luck was on our side as we sped (literally) down the highways. Every time we saw a cop, they already had a speeder pulled over, and we were of little matter to them. Things were going very well, until the good ol’ Mazda lost second gear. We were in Quebec, somewhere, I’d tell you where exactly but I can’t pronounce those French names, and if I could pronounce them I wouldn’t because I hate the French. Chalk it up to being forced through French class in High school. I digress. We were losing our transmission in a place where we couldn’t even speak their language, and we were many hours from home.

We stopped several times over the next few hours and poured money into the transmission, we were losing the fluid as quick as we were putting it in, but it got us a bit further down the road each time. It was Johnstown Ontario, just south of Ottawa, that the Mazda finally laid to rest. It was also about three in the morning. Our phone calls to possible responders went unanswered. We were trapped. On the bright side – it was Ontario – at least they spoke English.

We pushed the Mazda to the border and walked into the crossing patrol station. They looked at us as if we were retarded as we gave our account of the Mazda’s demise and our ultimate dilemma of how to get home. They pointed us in the direction of a gas station where we could get a couple bottles of transmission fluid in hopes of getting us over the bridge and into the States where rescue was most likely. Arriving at the gas station at around 5:30 AM, we were welcomed by a sign informing us that they opened at 6:00AM. With the long walk already made once, we had only the option of standing in the cold and waiting for someone to show up and open the little station up.

Victory was ours at last. At 6:30AM when we reached our frosted Mazda again, complete with two bottles of transmission fluid, we did the last thing we could do – pour them straight into the transmission fluid container and try one last time. To my amazement, we DID start moving again, and as we got about one quarter of the way up the steeply inclined bridge I let God know we were on speaking terms again.

Apparently, he didn’t feel the same way, because he smote the transmission one final time. There was only one thing left to do: Push.

Pushing the family vehicle up the steel-decked bridge, I looked down at the water rushing below us. Day dreaming is the best way to get through pushing a car for an extended distance, especially with an incline like this. My daydreams were a bit darker, where a section of the bridge would collapse be swallowed up by the Niagara River, the worthless paperweight of a vehicle with it, me laughing hysterically and in tones and octaves mostly reserved for sanitariums in B-rated movies. Alas, daydreaming didn’t get things done, and there was a pretty sturdy looking rail between the river and any possibility of making my dream come true. After mourning the death of my hopes for the demise of this anxiety-ridden ride, we reached the top of the slope. We could see the American border crossing, and with the slope as it was, we would be able to let the car coast all the way!

Unfortunately internet dating gives you an eternity of bad karma, and karma was catching up with me at the bottom of the bridge where there was a toll booth. Two hundred yards from the actual border crossing, level as could be, we were stopped. We had to push again. Skipping the boredom and details of what the crossing guards, who helped us push part of the way, looked like; we were given directions to a motel we could probably walk to.

Very bad directions. We walked for an hour and a half before we found a Walmart where we were able to get the number for a cab company. We got the cabby to take us to the nearest motel. The cabby didn’t wait for us to find the Motel office deserted. We walked again until we found what was formerly a Ramada, now an abandoned old building… or was it? Abandoned, I mean, was it abandoned? The only vehicle in the parking lot had Georgia plates. No lights on, no updated signs, just old Ramada signs that had red spray paint over the white letters that once spelled the franchise name. We tried the “front door” and were as delighted as you could be under the circumstances. On finding the front desk clerk, we were informed that since it was 11am and not 2pm, we would be charged for an extra half day’s stay. As unacceptable as this was, it became acceptable when we looked back on the past few hours of walking, and when remembering it had been over 24 hours since either of us had last slept. I gave in, and the clerk went to go “make sure the room was available”.

FakeRamada language lesson number one, “Make sure the room is available” translates into “Make sure this room is as shitty as possible because you don’t look a day over 21 and you’ll probably trash it”. She certainly made sure the room was available, as was noted by the leaking ceiling, cigarette burned bed spreads, stained floors, non-functioning phone, lack of hot water, and a heater that warmed approximately a two foot space in the next four hours. Despite having a room, I still had to leave the hotel to use a payphone across the street. Finally I got in touch with my mother, who in turn got in contact with my uncle who was able to pick up a car trailer and come get us. I went back to the room and tried to sleep, but the frustration of the day was weighing on me so much that I sat staring at the TV, flipping between a show about the playboy bunnies and a Romeo and Juliet story starring some sort of Spanish monkeys in some town somewhere. Quality television, I assure you.

Finally, when we wanted to check out because my uncle had made the six-hour trip to find us, we went to the front desk. Nobody was there. We rang the bell, called the desk from cell phones, and waited impatiently for a bit before I let myself in the “Employees Only” door beside the desk. Upon inspection I noticed a room with a couch, where our faithful Night Auditor lay sleeping peacefully through our obnoxious behavior. Tired and irritated, I gave the couch a couple kicks, a “Time to wake up, sunshine”, and then returned to my side of the front desk. He didn’t get up. It wasn’t until my uncle’s girlfriend at the time chimed in that the clerk decided he’d grace us with his presence. He insisted he was not sleeping, and when confronted with the fact he was witnessed sleeping, he said he’s allowed to sleep on the overnight shift. I was content with checking out, but after seeing the condition of the room my uncle and his then-girlfriend insisted I not pay for my stay. The night clerk whined and moaned through the fact he was unable to give refunds, etc. before he was told to call his manager. “The manager is probably at the casino” was his excuse. When pushed for a 1-800 number for the hotel, he checked his list of numbers and promptly came up with a 1-800 number… for poison control. After coming to the conclusion that we were not going to get anywhere with the possibility of a refund, we left the hotel, retrieved the hell-wagon, and made the six hour trek home.

I’ve always preferred Quality over Quantity, but the problems that came with this trip were more or less a quantity of quality. It goes without saying that I haven’t been on a road trip since, despite the Mazda having its transmission rebuilt. My friend thanked me for the experience, since he had no plans for the weekend and it was indeed an experience he hadn’t had before. We don’t talk anymore. On that note, I blame Quebec and the French who settled it; because it was there that the transmission blew. France, if you read this, you owe me about $1,500 American dollars for the transmission, and about ten times that for the emotional turmoil I went through.