My truck happens to be missing what is maybe the most important thing any truck-liver should get before they start living in it, a truck shell. To the uninitiated this is a (usually) fiberglass cover with windows that covers the top of a pickup truck bed. These can also be called caps and toppers, just to make it more difficult to search for them on Craigslist.
The irritating thing about trying to find one of these used online is that every truck ever made seems to have slightly different bed dimensions, and no one is selling one made for my truck. The measurements don’t necessarily have to be spot on though, usually you can make something work even if it’s an inch or two different. At least this is what people on the internet say, and people on the internet never lie, right?
I decided it was about time to get serious about this shell thing, and I spent a couple of days driving all over Utah looking at shells and trying them on the truck, only to discover that none of them would work any better than an umbrella with a largish hole in it.
Oh, well. Right back where I started.
However, there was one little hiccup. My truck came with a cover already on it, a flat one called a Tonneau (a word I have never had the courage to attempt aloud, but I feel pretty comfortable writing it down). In order to try different covers on I had to take it off. This involved much swearing, buying and returning several wrenches, and the help of a concerned citizen in the ACE Hardware parking lot, but I got it off.
Now, faced with the prospect of putting it back on, I decided just to give up entirely and do this:
Good enough, right? Wrong. As soon as I started to drive up the mountains to get out of Salt Lake it began to absolutely bucket down rain. Although my cover-up job did keep out rain falling directly on to my stuff, it did nothing to keep the pickup from filling with water. Not a ton of water, more like Ken and Barbie’s First Wading Pool, but enough to get all of my clothes and bedding thoroughly wet.
It turned out alright, it gave me an excuse to spend my Sunday lying about in the sun with all of my stuff, before trying to put the thing back on.
In the end I did manage it, the tailgate doesn’t close quite right anymore, but if you slam it it usually stays. The one thing I do find a bit worrisome is this:
It seems pretty big and important, but I can’t find any place for it.
Oh well, if I’ve garnered any wisdom from working with adolescent boys its that if you can’t find a hole to put it in, the best thing to do it just put it away and tell everyone you did.
Wander and Waver 