The Backup

To back up a trailer, you put your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel and move it the direction you want the trailer to go. This means I have to know which way I want the trailer to go. I have never once known.

The first night at the campground, it took me four tries. I got out six times to look. My wife stood behind the trailer holding up two hands, which means either “a little more” or “it's about this wide.” I've asked her which. She says she doesn't know either.

The people at site 22 came out on my second try. By the third there were four of them standing at the edge of their site with coffee. Nobody said anything or offered advice. They watched.

I got in on the fourth.

We camped there again in August. When we pulled in, there were nine chairs set out in a row facing our site, and someone had brought a cooler.

It took five tries. Nobody clapped. A woman handed her husband something out of the cooler. I took that as a good review.