Pro Pain: The Saga Continues

It was a grey day in Texas today, and that reminded me of winter when the sun went down early and I froze half the time. And I remembered a great story I hadn't shared yet. It's a doozie.
By now, you know how much I hate being cold, and how easy it was to run out of propane in the winter. Well, one cold winter's night, I am curled up in my bed under about 3 blankets and a sheet along with a personal heater in the shape of a cat watching a scary movie when I realized that I was bundled up under layers of warmth and still really cold. Fearing the worst, I got up and turned the thermostat to 80 degrees. Lo and behold, nothing happens. I'm out of propane. Go figure. Shady Grove fills propane tanks every week day for a fee, but all you have to do is unhook your tanks from the lines into your RV and set them in your driveway for the propane guys to pick up. They return them to your space full, and you can hook them up to your RV and bask in the warmth they give. So, I get my coat and boots on and go out to unhook my tanks so I don't have to do it tomorrow morning before I leave for work.
I shut the tanks off and try to unscrew them from the hose, but the collar on one of them won't budge! I wrap it in my jacket and try. It doesn't give an inch. I go back in the trailer to find a pair of gloves to use, but I can't find them anywhere. I end up grabbing a towel and trying that, but to no avail.  I'm pretty sure it's frozen shut. That sounds like a big problem to me, so I call Bob the best future-father-in-law ever to see what can be done if the collar gets frozen onto the propane tanks. It's about 9 o'clock at night, but he answers with what can only be described as an unamused tone. When I explain to him that the hose connector is frozen onto the propane tank and I can't get it off, he tells me to get that pair of gloves he left. When I tell him that I've already looked for them and can't find them, he's not too happy and gives me a little lecture about making sure I know to fill my tanks BEFORE they both run out. But, being the great future-father-in-law that he is, he offers to come out there to unhook them for me. It's a 45 minute drive for him to come out there from where he and Fran live. I tell him it's really ok, I can go one night. I said I would borrow a pair of gloves from the place I worked and unhook them tomorrow after work.
"But then you'll have to spend another night in the cold because they won't fill the tanks until the next day." He lets out a big sigh. "I'll come out there, just hold on. There better not be a pair of gloves there."
I assure him there isn't, and we hang up. Well, it is still freezing, and I have 45 minutes, so I get back under the covers and start the movie again.
I was watching You're Next, a movie about a holiday that goes terribly wrong. It was just getting good, the bad guys were trying to kill the main character and the suspense was building, when I heard a knock on the door. I was so engrossed in the film that the sound jolted me out of bed before I realized that a killer probably wouldn't knock before he busted in to murder me. Nope, Bob was here. My hero.
I open the door and tell him he almost gave me a heart attack, to which he replied, "Why are you watching a scary movie by yourself?" Good point.
He handed me a pair of gloves he brought and we head to the propane tanks. I put the gloves on and try to turn the collar on the hose. It spins easily. I look up at him (he's 6'6") with my mouth wide open.
"I tried my jacket! I tried a towel! It really wouldn't move before! Really!"

He shakes his head and lets out another sigh. "Gloves make all the difference. You really don't have any? I thought I left a pair for you."
"No, I looked. I didn't find any."
We start back towards the door of the trailer.
"If I find a pair of gloves in here, I'm kicking your ass."
I chuckled at that. Then Bob looked in a drawer I swear I had looked in, and he came up with 2 pairs of gloves. TWO.

I felt what can only be described as hilarious shame.The look he gave me... Well, let's just say I was glad he was leaving. I felt so bad, I apologized profusely and promised I would do a better job of getting my propane tanks refilled before they both ran out.
As he is walking out the door he says, "And don't watch a scary movie by yourself!"
"Don't knock on my door!"
He turns around and says, "Then deal with your own fucking propane!" and climbs in his truck.
Deep down, he's really glad I'm part of the family.


May you always find what you're looking for (before a large, angry man gives you a death stare),
Ray

Cold Snap

As I said before, when it's the coldest winter you've seen in your lifetime, and you're living in a tiny "house" with literal paper walls, heating becomes paramount. Heat comes from the propane tanks that are hooked up to the trailer. They are larger than a normal propane tank that you might have for your outdoor grill, but when it's cold as a well digger's shovel outside, the heat runs constantly, and you can run out of propane very quickly. When you run out of propane, several things happen.
First, you don't want to get out of bed. Oh, yeah, the propane will ALWAYS run out in the middle of the night. You won't want to get out of bed because it's the only warm spot in your whole house.
Second, you'll get miserable and angry because you're freezing, but still have to go to work. I am not Elsa from Frozen.

You're insane.

Third, when, for reasons like procrastination or forgetfulness, you don't called the RV park office to get your propane tanks refilled, your water pipes can freeze. That means you have no water.
It's just a bad scenario all around.
Sometimes, however, you just aren't home to know your propane tanks ran out in the first place. This happened to me in March. Ross and I had gone to Aggieland, that is, College Station (WHOOP) to take our engagement photos. While we were leaving to come home on Sunday, a crazy cold front came through North Texas. We literally drove on ice for miles on the way back. When we got closer to Dallas, and road workers had spread sand on the roads, and we made better time, but a 3 hour trip took us about 5 hours total. By the time I got home, the temperatures had dropped significantly. I think it was 12 degrees out. When I park outside my trailer, I run in expecting to be greeted by a purring cat and warm, snuggly air. WRONG!
The propane tanks had run out while I was gone! This is what I came home to instead:

Icicles from my faucets and ice in the toilet. That's how cold it was inside my trailer. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. Luckily, I remembered and got my propane tanks refilled the next day and made it nice and toasty when I got home from work. Which was good because the icicles may have gotten as big as the ones outside:

Brrrrrrr!!!!

May you ALWAYS be warm when it's cold out (and procrastinate very little),
Ray