I bought my wife a Ford Maverick while I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground for the Ordnance Officer Basic Course in Aberdeen, Maryland. It took me a long time to convince her to drive the car after the accident we experienced with the man on the motorcycle in Frederick, Maryland. The trauma of that event could not be erased from her memory as easily as it was erased from mine. As soon as the damage to my car was fixed, I was fine. I should note that when I say my car, I am really referring to my wife’s car. She never let me forget that it was “her car.” It was her car to the point where she made me hound the lawyers and insurance agents every other day to find out when her car would be fixed. However, her car only became my car when it needed something like gas or a car wash. Then, it was my car that needed to be filled with gas or my car that needed to be washed and waxed. It’s funny how shit works that way. Anyways, once I finally convinced her to start driving again, she had no problem getting around Aberdeen and going to the commissary and PX on post. I was at Aberdeen to attend the Ordnance Officer Basic Course. That meant I had to be in school pretty much the whole day unless the instructors gave us the day off. There was about as much chance of that happening as me driving to Vegas and putting down $100 on a 10,000 to 1 odds shot of hitting a blackjack and winning. The oddsmakers in Vegas ain’t in business to lose money. They’re in business to take your money. And they gladly do it all day long, and all night too, if you let them. So, when I got out of class at lunchtime, and went over to the orderly room and checked my mail. And the clerk at the orderly room promptly told me, “Lieutenant Masters, I have a message for you.” You check the message (you in this case being me) and find out that it’s from your wife who wants you to come home as soon as possible. As soon as possible in this case is going to have to be after work. Then, when you do get home, after you get your butt chewed for not coming home earlier, you find out that it was because your wife thinks her car needs gas. Now, here’s where I’m going with this. Elephants have long memories, supposedly. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But if it is, my wife is definitely an elephant. And damn, her memory is seriously long. She doesn’t forget shit. She had a Rambler in Denver. And that damn Rambler ran out of gas one time. One measly stinking time. That’s it. Not two. Not five. One. I took care of it. I walked and got gas. Then, I found a way to fix the gas gauge. But with the Ford Maverick, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with the gas gauge. Nope. Nada. That gas gauge worked fine. I started up the car and checked the gauge and a tank showed half-full. I said what the hell. But she wasn’t hearing it. I went and put some gas in the car and filled up the tank. Basically, I made her happy. That brings me to another point. If you’re married, you already know this. You’re going to get those calls at work all the time. The call from home where it’s an emergency and you have got to drop everything and rush right home. And when you get there, it’s not an emergency. It could have waited until you come home from work. About two months before we left Denver, we sold the Rambler. Hindsight is 20/20. If you’ve never heard that before, it’s a true statement. You can always see with wisdom and clarity the correct decision or course of action after the fact. When you make a decision, you may think it’s the right decision at that time. But later on, down the line, you may realize that another decision or course of action would have been a better choice. We realized that when we got to Aberdeen and my wife needed a car. And my wife, with her elephant memory and all, would not let me forget it. Oh no. If I had just kept the Rambler, we wouldn’t have this problem now. Would we? Like I said, hindsight is 20/20. And elephants have long memories, and they don’t let you forget shit. Oh hell no. So, when it came time to leave Aberdeen Proving Ground for another assignment, my wife insisted that we take her car with us. Since driving two cars did not seem practical, I looked into other options. I thought about renting a car tow dolly. But when I checked all of the rental places within a 50-mile radius of Aberdeen Proving Ground, there were not any available. I did find one car carrier trailer that I could rent. But it was too expensive. Then, I explored purchasing my own hitch and towbar. No matter which solution I opted to go for, I would need a hitch. As a result, buying the towbar seemed like the best investment choice I could make. Additionally, I would be making my wife happy because we would be taking her car with us. Thus, I avoided a conflict with my wife and an exercise in futility.
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