In 2002 my sister Clare, her husband, Terry, and their two teenage daughters came to visit us from the U.K. We arranged to rent an RV big enough for all of us, fully equipped with on-board kitchen and bathroom. The plan was to drive to Chicago, where we’d take in the sights and listen to some blues. So with my husband, Ben, and I sharing the driving, and Clare’s family plus my one-year-old son and the dog safely in the back, we set off.
We crossed the border at Windsor, entered Detroit, and promptly got lost. By the time we found our way out to the I-94 we’d driven the thirty-foot RV through some of the less salubrious sights of the city, insults had been hurled about navigation and driving skills, tempers were frayed, and an unpleasant hush had descended.
We stopped at a rest area to switch drivers. I announced that I was going to use the washroom. I slammed the door and stormed off. When I came out a few minutes later I was greeted by the sight of the rear end of the RV hurtling down the slip road and back onto the interstate. I ran, screaming at the top of my voice, telling them to stop—to no avail.
They disappeared from sight, leaving me with no money and no cell phone.
At that moment, the driver of an eighteen-wheeler, about to leave the rest area, pulled up beside me and asked if I wanted to try to catch them. Any sane person would, and should, have said “No thanks,” but the earlier insults and irritation over my map reading drove me to hurl caution to the wind. I hopped into the rig. The driver accelerated through the gears and the huge vehicle shuddered in pursuit. I sat back and immediately realized two things: I didn’t know our RV’s plate number and I couldn’t remember my husband’s cell phone number!
Back in the RV, my sister Clare had volunteered my brother-in-law Terry to drive. My husband was engrossed in directing Terry’s driving when my niece began to wonder why I was taking so long in the RV’s toilet. She got up and opened the door to the empty stall.
“Where’s Margaret?” she cried.
At the same moment, a car drew up next to them and flashed a piece of paper against the window with the word “LADY” written on it and an arrow pointing back to the rest area. Pandemonium broke out. My brother-in-law, who was not at all confident driving the thing anyway, pulled over and practically jumped out of the seat. My husband took over.
Meanwhile, the trucker and I had spotted them up ahead. But just as we were about to catch up to them, they pulled off the highway and took the overpass. They headed back to the rest area just as we blew under the overpass in the eighteen-wheeler!
The truck driver pulled over as quickly as he could and got on his CB radio to ask truckers in the area for assistance. Some of them asked my age, my marital status, and whether I was pretty, but others told him they’d look for the RV at the rest stop and, if they found it, would tell my family where they could find me.
Back at the rest stop everyone was frantically searching the washrooms. A torrential rain had begun to fall. My husband’s mind was spiralling out of control; he was imagining terrifying possibilities of where his annoyed wife—on a mission to prove that her map-reading skills weren’t as bad as he’d suggested— might turn up.
The American trucker and I, still waiting on the side of the highway, filled the time by chatting about Canada, and how he often listened to French-Canadian truckers chatting in French over the CB radio. After half an hour we decided that the RV wasn’t coming to get me. He radioed his dispatcher. They said they’d send a state trooper to pick me up.
The state trooper eventually arrived and drove me back to the rest area, where I found my family. While I stood there forlornly, he told my teenage nieces never to do what I had done: never jump into a vehicle driven by someone you don’t know!
Nevertheless, when we all got back into the RV, all the bad blood over our Detroit detour had vanished. The dog and my one-year-old son had slept through the entire affair. My brother-in-law never drove the RV again.
Kitchener, Ontario