Why Pin Striping is Best Left to Professionals

I am linking up with Rachel at Once Upon a Miracle for True Story Tuesday. I considered sharing this story last summer, but the trauma was still too fresh. Seven months later, no one's blood pressure elevates any more so the story is safe to tell.

I just wanted to give my family a good childhood memory. Swimming in cool Lake Superior on a hot afternoon sounded mighty good, although getting a big family ready is a daunting chore.

     Lunches packed. Check
     Friends called and picked up. Check
     Sunscreen packed. Check
     Swim suits. Check    
     Beach towels and Beach chairs. Check
     Volleyball and Floaties. Check
     Shovels for digging in the sand or burying people. Check 

When the small local beach parking lot was full last summer, I drove down a narrow overgrown bumpy side road that connected a mile farther down with another parking lot.  My big 8-seater, but could fit 11 if we had the back row in, maroon 1993 Ford passenger van barely fit on the trail. (The picture shows what the van looks but this is not the "road" I was on)

Normally our "takes a licking and keeps ticking" van holds lots of people and stuff, is great to take biking, hiking, camping, or on road trips, and works good for youth group outings.

circa 2005

Keith says we won't replace it until it dies, which if I keep this kind of stuff up won't be long. 

When the trail narrowed again, I debated whether to continue, but there was nowhere to turn around and I didn't want to drive in reverse the way I'd come. When it became apparent that taking this road was a really bad idea, my nephew recommended that I back up before I got stuck. I chose to be in denial  to go forward, optimistically deciding that the road couldn't get much worse.

Wrong. Oh so wrong. Oh so embarrassingly wrong. Oh so I'll never hear the end of it wrong.

Soon Isaac had to open the window and push branches away. Then the girls had to get out and hold branches back so I could pass. Despite our best efforts I could hear lots of creaking, scraping, and scratching and could only imagine what "kind" words my husband would have for me. The road narrowed still more and the overgrown branches did a number on my van.

That was the longest mile I've ever driven. I dreaded looking at the damage.

I turned to Isaac, "Why did you let me do that?"

He looked over incredulously, "But I told you to back up."

"But you weren't firm enough. You should have held your breath until I backed up or did something drastic so I knew you meant business." I generously offered to take three-fourths of the blame if he would take the other fourth.

Miraculously, the driver's side didn't look bad. Oh, but the poor passenger's side looked like a drunk, blindfolded grizzly with a shaky hand and a bad case of the hiccups had pinstriped the whole side. The side mirror was scraped and crooked, the running board was loose, and the wheel well flappy thing came off.

I told the kids that I don't advocate lying so if their Dad specifically asked if I went four-wheeling and damaged the van then they could tell him, but otherwise they didn't need to volunteer the information.

When we FINALLY got to the beach, Keith, who was to meet us there, asked, "Why did you come from that direction?"

A person who thinks well on their feet would have said, "because the parking lot was full." But, no, I stammered and stuttered and blurted out that I had a "little" problem. Thankfully we were with a group of people so he had to behave himself.

On the way home, Isaac suggested a car wash might help the van look better before Keith saw it. He also suggested the Deluxe wash with wax. Since I'd never spent $10 on a car wash in my life, I went for the cheaper option.

Back at home, Isaac looked at the van, shook his head and said matter-of-factly, "I told you we should have got the Deluxe wash."

In a cruel twist of fate, a friend later said I had been on a little-used ATV trail. Which certainly explained a few things. It wasn't big enough for a car, let alone a big red van. I probably looked like a huge red tomato bouncing through the forest. 

On the bright side, every little "improvement" is good theft prevention. Only desperate people would steal a one-sided crookedly striped, aging, gas guzzling, 200,000 mile van.

Thankfully the van is usually dirty so the stripes don't show. 

Much.  

(P.S. A smart person would have taken a picture of the damage but I didn't and now, as I just mentioned, the van is dirty, so I still can't take a picture. Plus it's too cold to stand outside taking pictures of dirty vans anyway.)