BmoreStew
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2019
- Messages
- 131
- Reaction score
- 185
My mom-in-law was in a fender bender last week. She couldn’t afford her deductible and I’ve got a huge problem watching someone who has less than zero money paying a mechanic 5 times what I know the work is worth, so I offered to do the work for her. Figure i might win CNN’s person of year award.
Anyway, figured that if I was quick, i could pickup her car and get back before my lunch break was over. 12 comes, i rush out, hook up the trailer and hit the road. Got to her place and start driving the car onto the trailer and that’s the moment I realized that I didn’t lock the tongue down on the ball.
Everything happened at that perfect speed where you know exactly what‘s happening, but can’t do a damn thing to stop it. the second the back wheels of her car hit the ramp, the tongue popped off the ball, and the whole damn rolled down the slightest incline you’ve ever seen... right into the tailgate. I think i started shaking my head before it even hit.
My mother-in-law screams and then starts apologizing profusely and offering to pay for it with her insurance check. So, of course, first I look all around to see if anyone else saw that dumbassery and then 5 minutes explaining that she’s not the idiot who didn’t check his trailer... and fighting the urge to say “your check isn’t going to cover this anyway”.
Worst part was hearing the tongue slide down the tailgate onto the bumper after I chocked the trailer wheels and pulled the two apart. I was smiling most of the time though... it was just too stupid not to chuckle. I told her as stupid as I was, she might have been dumber for watching me do that and still letting me load up her car and drive off.
If it wasn’t this it’d be a piece of firewood thrown just a bit off the mark or something else AND the damn thing could of popped off on the highway... could of been much worse. It’s a truck and **** happens when you use a truck to do truck things. A $1000 mistake. Don’t skip the trailer checklist people.
Made it back before lunch was over. So win.
Anyway, figured that if I was quick, i could pickup her car and get back before my lunch break was over. 12 comes, i rush out, hook up the trailer and hit the road. Got to her place and start driving the car onto the trailer and that’s the moment I realized that I didn’t lock the tongue down on the ball.
Everything happened at that perfect speed where you know exactly what‘s happening, but can’t do a damn thing to stop it. the second the back wheels of her car hit the ramp, the tongue popped off the ball, and the whole damn rolled down the slightest incline you’ve ever seen... right into the tailgate. I think i started shaking my head before it even hit.
My mother-in-law screams and then starts apologizing profusely and offering to pay for it with her insurance check. So, of course, first I look all around to see if anyone else saw that dumbassery and then 5 minutes explaining that she’s not the idiot who didn’t check his trailer... and fighting the urge to say “your check isn’t going to cover this anyway”.
Worst part was hearing the tongue slide down the tailgate onto the bumper after I chocked the trailer wheels and pulled the two apart. I was smiling most of the time though... it was just too stupid not to chuckle. I told her as stupid as I was, she might have been dumber for watching me do that and still letting me load up her car and drive off.
If it wasn’t this it’d be a piece of firewood thrown just a bit off the mark or something else AND the damn thing could of popped off on the highway... could of been much worse. It’s a truck and **** happens when you use a truck to do truck things. A $1000 mistake. Don’t skip the trailer checklist people.
Made it back before lunch was over. So win.
