Even messy, smelly ones. You think such accidents could be avoided with a little foresight, but, ignorance precludes being preventative in some cases.
Carole has the worthy objective of being able to run the motor home all on her own. Driving, hooking up, draining the tanks and all. I’m all for it! Being able to pull out my chair and let her set up camp is quite an inviting idea! However, the fact that Carole needs to be able to run the show is more a necessity given my travel every two or three weeks while the family is on the road.
Well….our first outside training session had a minor issue. We stopped at a campground outside Carlsbad Caverns and Carole voiced the “need” to setup the electrical, water, sewer, etc. on her own. Of course, this was our first night for draining out the holding tanks and all the equipment hadn’t been fully road tested. Now, for those of you non-RVers, you do the stinky stuff first, and, then you drain the grey tank (soapy water) to flush out the hose and get rid of any left over chunkies. It’s not a nice job, but, someone’s got to do it.
We hooked up the sewer hose, checked all the connections, and, Carole opens up the valve. We didn’t think of draining the tank slowly. I mean, who wants to hang out draining out the sewer tank? So open up the valve and let it rip! No time to waste draining the stuff – that’s our motto. Things go OK for about 5 seconds, and then, the hose comes off the coupler thingy which secures the hose to the stinky tank. Oh boy! Toxic waste spill! My most sensible wife JUMPS back 5 feet making some unintelligible noises – I never knew she could move so fast! You’d think a bear was after her or something worse!
My job? Dive in and save the day! I jump in, close the valve, and gently ask her if she thought of shutting it off instead of letting it run? Silly question, I know. Clean up time. Can you guess who gets that job?
Time for another trip to Camping World…..
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
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