The Paddy Wagon’s “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”

A few minutes ago, the drone of a whirring drill, which I had been hearing for the last few hours, suddenly stopped. A minute later, Pat burst into the house, and I could tell he was upset.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“NOT GOOD,” he replied, emphasizing each word like they belonged in two separate sentences.

Uh oh.

With trepidation, I ventured further. “What happened?”

“I think I got a bad batch of bolts.” He practically spat the words.

He said no more, but bee lined straight to his computer and typed furiously for a minute, then stomped back downstairs. “Now I have to take everything apart,” he said disgustedly as he shut the door hard behind him.

Oh dear.

It’s not a good day for the Paddy Wagon. Or my husband.

Pat has been feverishly working on the van, trying to get it ready, as my son and daughter-in-law, who live out of state, are expecting a baby very soon and we are hoping to drive the van to their vicinity to be able to meet our first granddaughter shortly after she makes her grand appearance.

The van is not anywhere near finished. The long pieces of extruded aluminum bolted to the inside walls of the van only hint that fully formed cabinets and cupboards are coming. But with electricity, fans, a shower, composting toilet, refrigerator, mosquito netting, and a camping oven/stove, we certainly possess enough basic equipment to do some bare bones van camping for an indeterminate number of days.

Pat had hoped to install the aluminum bed frame, too, so we could at least sleep in comfort atop the tri-fold memory foam mattress that is currently wrapped in a giant plastic bag in our storage room.

But now those blasted bad bolts are gumming up our plans.

Apparently, he needed these bolts to construct his cleverly designed pull-out bed frame. (When I took this picture the other day, everything was unfastened because he was still waiting for the bolts.)

He had ordered the bolts online, and they had just been delivered, but as soon as he started to drill, he could tell right away that they were not quality parts. In fact, they were so bad they started to damage the aluminum. And for those of you who have never built your own campervan, 80/20 extruded aluminum is expensive.

He wisely stopped drilling, came inside, and poured himself a glass of orange juice to cool down.

That’s the other thing. It doesn’t help that it’s blazing hot outside, and even with all the doors open, the inside of the van must feel like an inferno with the summer sun beating down on the blue roof.

He’s taking a break now, and went to go run a few errands. When he returns, we’ll figure out what to do.

From what we hear, this is the essence of van life. Most days are great, and once in a while, like Alexander from Judith Viorst’s delightful classic children’s book, you can’t escape a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Ultimately, it won’t bother us if the van has to wait.

It’s our new little grandbaby that we can hardly wait for.