It was just too ironic.
Late last fall, Dave asked me to come with him to look at a trawler for sale in New Bern, N.C. He had seen it advertised in Soundings, the monthly wish-book for boat-lovers, and had spoken several times with the owner. It sounded like Our Next Boat.
You must understand that for the nearly 60 years we’ve known each other, Dave has spent most of his free time scoping out boats, marinas, or navigable waterways.
He’s had a boat since he was six, and is usually happy with it, but for every sailor, there is always the Next Boat. And, owing in part to our adventures in the canals of Europe several years ago, we decided that Our Next Boat will be a trawler or tug-type river cruiser.
All right, I said, I can get away and go to New Bern with you, except I do have a story that I absolutely promised would be in for next week’s paper.
I tried, I really did, to finish it before we left, but it does a marriage no good to have one partner seated before a computer while the other makes trip after trip from kitchen to motor home getting ready to leave.
“OK,” I said, aware of Dave’s deteriorating humor. “That’s what modems are for. I’ll finish this en route and e-mail it from the road.”
We were leaving on a Friday morning and the story needed to be in by early afternoon. The present owner of Our Next Boat was expecting us Saturday noonish.
So I helped load the camper, plugged my laptop into the inverter, and typed merrily away while Dave steered us toward the coast. To my own surprise, the story went well, and soon was finished, revised, proofed, polished, and ready to file.
Now I needed to find a place to plug in and e-mail it. For the life of me, I don’t know how the road warriors telecommute. I guess they all have cellular phones.
We didn’t then, and I knew I couldn’t plug my modem into a pay-phone. What I needed was an ordinary telephone like the one I have at home.
With no personal contacts in southern North Carolina where we were now, I came up with a strategy: Find a newspaper office — surely they would help a colleague in distress.
Dave had intended to bear northward toward New Bern, but graciously continued east toward Wilmington where my e-mail provider, Juno, has a local number. That way I could avoid trying to figure out how to pay for a long-distance call.
I was navigating with our computer map program, and directed Dave toward a busy section of town with an AAA office nearby, thinking if the newspaper ploy failed, the motor club would be a back-up. We were past it before I realized that a sign to my right identified the Wilmington Morning Star.
“Turn right,” I shouted, and the camper lurched through a parking lot and down a driveway not intended for even our modest-sized unit. While Dave parked, I went inside carrying my computer, external modem, telephone line, and modem cable.
I had the sense to have a business card in one hand, and it must have impressed the receptionist, because she began clearing a corner of her counter and looking for a free phone jack. One of these days, I promised myself, I’d spring for a fax/modem card for the laptop, but for now, it takes a lot of hardware to get on-line.
At last, however, (and I was sweating with nervousness!) I was to the point where one press of a key would connect Wilmington, N.C. and Fayetteville, Ga.
And nothing happened.
The message box informed me there was no dial tone. The receptionist, between answering phone calls, checked the jack. It worked fine for her. We moved my operation to another desk, tried again, and still nothing.
Then I realized you have to dial 9 to get an outside line, and in my state of panic, I could not figure out how to do that with my program. Mortified, I thanked the receptionist and dragged my gear, not to mention my ego, back to the camper — wishing I had not given her my card with The Citizen’s name on it. What dorks that newspaper hires, she must have been thinking.
“AAA is just down the road, Dave,” I implored, as my long-suffering husband gave every indication he had run out of patience. “Let me try them.”
That required a left-hand turn across a busy highway, not a favorite move for an RV-driver. More careful threading through a parking lot, and I was inside the AAA office, pouring out my tale of woe once more.
“You are supposed to help in travel-emergencies,” I ventured hopefully, “and this really is one. And we are members,” I added, readying yet another card.
“No problem,” said the young lady behind the desk, waving off my membership card. “Ron isn’t here today; use his desk. And you don’t need to dial 9 first.”
I’m out of space, but not out of story. Check back next week to see what happened, and whence the irony….
[Sallie Satterthwaite of Peachtree City has been writing for The Citizen since our first issue Feb. 10, 1993. Before that she had served as a city councilwoman and as a volunteer emergency medical technician. She is the only columnist we know who has a fire station named for her. Her email is SallieS@Juno.com.]
