April, 1998
A few weeks ago, as I was cruising down the highway in the early evening, a car quickly pulled up beside me and began flashing its lights. At first I ignored it, thinking it was someone angry with me for, god forbid, going 55mph in the slow lane, but when I glanced to the left I saw that the driver was a woman. She flashed her lights again and honked and pointed at the back of my truck, towards the trailer. I could see the tires of the trailer in my side view mirrors, and they were perfectly inflated and rolling along happily, so I had no idea what she was pointing to. Suddenly I was struck with the terrifying thought: what if the trailer's on fire? But I couldn't see any signs of smoke or flames billowing out the back, so I slowed down a bit but planned to keep going. A few minute later, an 18-wheeler pulled up along side me, the trucker flashing his lights and honking and pointing towards the trailer. My heart sank. If a trucker is pointing it out, there must be a serious problem back there. If not fire, I wondered if perhaps some idiot driver had wiped out the back end of the trailer and I hadn't even noticed. Or of perhaps one of the compartments had swung open, spilling its contents out onto the road.
So I slowed down considerably and pulled off at the next exit, unwilling to risk the shoulder with such a wide load. I parked at a closed donut shop and got out to survey the damage, but I saw nothing. The tires were in great shape, the compartments all locked, no signs of fire, even the large green mat was still there, neatly rolled and bungeed up against the spare tire. I walked around and around the trailer, studying it, but not for the life of me could I figure out what had caused such alarm. I got back in the truck and continued towards my destination: a nearby truck stop for the night, and then another day's worth of driving before arriving at my destination.
It wasn't until I went to do my RVers duties at the dump station, after several days of "dry camping" (w/o hookups), that I realized what had happened.
RV designers are very clever, putting every available inch of space to use for something, including the hollow interior of the bumper. That's where one normally keeps the sewer hose, an item one wouldn't particularly want to come into contact with anything else on board. The sewer hose is normally secured inside the bumper with a square rubber "plug," which has two little nubs on either side, designed to fit into little holes drilled into the sides of the bumper opening, to secure it in place. Somehow my bumper plug managed to liberate itself on the highway, and what the car driver and the trucker were frantically trying to point out to me was that my sewer hose was making a valiant effort to chase after it. I can just imagine the sight: the big, sqaure back end of a shiny, new travel trailer, with a long, blue sewer hose creeping slowly out of the bumper, landing on the highway like a giant alien earthworm. Not your typical road kill, certainly.
