Backroads Gothic

Hick put the camper on Swap N Shop last Wednesday. The one currently in our front yard, that he’s asking $10,900 for, not the fifth wheel camper my mom gave us, in which toddler Genius got lodged between the mattress and the wall overnight. Unless that was The Pony. I might be confusing the time we lost Genius as an infant, between our mattress and headboard, in the master bedroom of the $17,000 house.


Anyhoo… Hick had a response within the hour. Somebody called for more information, and said they'd like to look at the camper. A guy and his wife drove from a town on the banks of the Mississippi, about 45 minutes away, to look at it. Hick figured they were serious, not just lookers, to be coming all that way. Like they must have the money to actually buy, if they liked it.

I was at Walmart when Hick called and told me. I wasn't exactly thrilled. Sure, I'd like to sell the camper and get back our investment in Hick House. But Hick should have put that camper up on the Storage Unit Store lot a month ago. He's wasted valuable time in getting it out to the public. Of course it's his fault that we had so many rainy days that precluded the pulling of the camper out of our front yard.

Anyhoo... on the way home, I turned onto our county blacktop road, and saw the prospective buyers coming out. I just knew it was them. An old man and old woman in a red Jeep SUV of some kind. They both had stern looks on their faces. Like American Gothic, without the pitchfork. I asked Hick how the tour went, and if they were in a red car.

“Yeah. Red car.”

“I passed them. They both had a stern look.”

“I KNOW! I couldn’t read them at all. I met them on the storage unit parking lot, and the guy rolled down his window, and said, ‘I’ll follow you.’ Real gruff. He acted mad. They both walked around the camper, and said it looked in good shape. They said, ‘We’ll probably get a new mattress.’ I agreed. I told them we’d talked about that, but people would probably want to buy their own, to make sure it’s new. Even if we'd replaced it. The old man said they had another camper to look at, and that he’d call me.”

“That might just be his way of getting out of here, not wanting it.”

“We’ll see. Other people might want it. I’m not holding it for them.”

As of now, a week and a half later, they haven’t called back, so I guess they don’t want it. Hick said he might call the radio every day and list it. Don’t cost nothin’, as John Belushi says in Animal House.