Audrey Comes to Town

A fascinating trip to bring Audrey to town. Audrey is the name of a carnivorous plant from the show “The Little Shop of Horrors”. We had to bring various sizes of Audrey back from another theater. The trip there was uneventful. No problems, and the GPS unit, while a bit annoying, led us unerringly to our destination.

Then we saw the plants. All I could think of was: “Would it all fit in my truck?” All of the stuff was soon loaded into the truck, and we were on our way. On the way to get some food, I was sure the stuff in back would need to have a tarp to be safe at speeds over 40 mph. We stopped at a Meijer store to locate said tarp. I was sure I had enough cords and straps to contain the load. Everything looked good to go.

Starting down the road, the load looked good. At 45-50 mph things started to come apart. Something came off and the back end of the tarp was flipping all over the place. I started looking for a place to pull over. In looking at our prized load we found that the tarp had ripped, and a one of the bungies broke. We thought we saw some of Audrey fall off the truck, but we could not find any of the pieces. Tying down the load again we took off at a slower speed.

Things still weren’t looking good, so I found a better place to stop. I was too close to the road the last time, and tying up loose ends when traffic is flying past you at 55+ isn’t something on my list of things to do. We stopped in the lot of a small yard ornament shop. They had some nice things, but we didn’t have any room to put them. If I had really found a deal, I wonder if I could have talked one of my fellow travelers into holding a 50 concrete statue on their lap?

Again we go out to tie things down. I do mean tie things down. More straps came loose and broke. We actually had to tie them to the tarp and the truck.

Instead of taking the the roads with higher traffic, I took a less traveled road, hoping to get to a town or village. We did stop 1 or 2 more times before finding a place to get some more things to tie this menacing beast down. Audrey II was threatening to fly off with the tarp whenever our speed approached 50 mph. Not much could be done at this point. We were out of things to tie her down. If we kept losing straps, we would need to go less than 25 mph because there wouldn’t be much holding Audrey in place.

Finally making it to Oakwood, Ohio there was a little hardware store that did have what we needed to finish our transport. This place actually had a wood stove to supply its heat. This was common in a much earlier time period, but not so much in 2009 OHIO. When replacing the straps one of the old ones actually snapped in half removing it. Wow!! I think we just made it. If I can find the receipt for those straps, I may take them back. They were supposedly heavy duty bungies. I don’t think so.

With more straps and tie downs we were finally able to travel at 50+ Mph without fear of Audrey II taking flight. We made it through Defiance (and a bit of traffic) with out much more than a few strange looks. And finally made it to our prop’s final destination of Bryan OH.

The thing about this whole trip is not so much the trouble we had, or the frequent stops. I’m sure given the ‘wrong’ group of people, this could have been a nightmare experience. Anger and frustration could have reared its ugly head. But for some odd reason none of that happened. We joked about it during the trip. We were also saying it would make a good blog post. Who would write about it first. I’m still waiting for more pictures of Audrey bits on the road, or the each of the stops along the way. How about one of our Esteemed admin crawling under the truck to look for a place to tie something?

The trip became an adventure. At least on my part, I had a fun afternoon. The three of us on the trip are still talking to each other. 😉 No fights broke out that I am aware of. And I’m sure whenever the show is discussed, the first adventures of Audrey will be told. Will the story be ‘stretched’? (bad pun considering our bungies). You bet, this is for a theater group. We like good stories. Will there be little Audrey’s growing on the roads between Lima OH and Bryan OH? I wouldn’t bet against it. Will I volunteer for another road trip? If it is with the same people, you bet.

I’m not sure how the play itself will go, but if the first trip of Audrey is any indication, it should be fun. This is a musical, so due to my own idiosyncrasies, I will not be on stage for it. My role, as much or as little as it is will be in an off stage capacity. Theater will be taking a back seat for me. Family is taking over with graduations, weddings, babies and just plain visiting with the daughters, sons and grandkids I don’t see often enough. Theater is now taking a backseat.

Anyway, I did once write about me having a truck and actually using it, so I guess that I did it again. Have truck will deliver, maybe I should make a sign?

justj