The chairman of the board and I bought a mattress at Bargain Hut in March. They don’t have a delivery option, but we didn’t need one. The salesman helped us put it on the roof of our Toyota Sienna minivan and I tied it down. As confident as I was of my knots, while driving home I aimed the left mirror up from time to time to make sure that it was still there.
Misadventure motivated me to learn to tie stuff to the roof of my car after. Growing up, my dad had his way of tying canoes to the top of his pickup truck. When I first tied one to the top of my car, I didn’t think too much about it until I turned into the pull-off alongside Lake Umbagog and put on the brakes. The canoe shot forward, flew over the hood and landed next to the water. It was a little scary, but saved us the task of unloading the canoe. I learned that day to control the forces, especially the forward momentum of the load when the brakes are applied.
When we were preparing to go to Africa for the first time we moved to Quebec for a year to study French. During the same period of time we bought equipment to ship to Africa. These activities gave us many chances to tie excess baggage to the roof of our station wagon. My dad called us Sanford and son.
I learned the value of ratchet tie downs and checking the load occasionally when we traveled the bumpy roads of Central Africa. When we were moving from Yaounde, Cameroon to Bayanga, Central African Republic, I hauled a number of loads over the route. Once, in addition to the load in the Toyota Hilux pickup, we had a mattress tied to the top. By God’s grace I just happened to looking at the mirror the moment when the mattress flew off the pickup into the air. We backed up, retrieved the mattress and tied it down again.
I now share my tie down skills with suburbanites who have little tie down experience. Have you ever seen someone at Home Depot tie 5 eight foot 2x4s to the roof of their Toyota Camry only to realize that they ran the rope through the windows and over the top and could no longer open the doors? It is embarrassing getting in through the window. When you open the doors first and run a tie down strap through the car then up and around the load you can still open the doors.
Adventures in Suburbia 