Hubris and Adjustment

Sometimes new ideas make a big impression. Such was when I first learned of the term ‘hubris’ many years ago as a Classical Studies major at RI College in the early 1980s. As I learned it back then, hubris was a common theme in Ancient Greek tragedies wherein basically humans would get a little too full of themselves and their capacities until the gods would notice and politely stomp humans back into place. The idea resonated with me, seemed to help explain a bit of life, and has stuck with me to this day.

So, a few days ago, Laura and I proudly proclaimed to each other that we were beyond the cold, we would not really need to fill our propane (the source of our heat), and sunny, warm days were all that was ahead of us. While not being near the levels of Odysseus or Agamemnon, it’s been rather cold here the last few nights. Not quite 20s and snow as we hear is going on up north, but back into the 40s and yes the heat has been on of late. We apologize to the gods.

Which leads to the topic of adjustment – which has been our prime sport, in a good way, since we have been on the road. When we last shared our itinerary, we anticipated leaving the week-long campground stay to spend some time along the coast and beaches before heading to New Port Richey, FL to visit Laura’s Mom. One of our last conversations at the campground with the gurus of all things RV was, ‘so what are these air-helper springs in our RV anyways?’

Air Helper Spring Gauge – the Guilty Suspect

After being admonished by our fellow and more knowledgeable campers that they were simple airbag-like devices that were inserted in the van springs to help carry the heavier load of an RV, we realized that we better check out the status of these critical devices. They were flat. We filed them with air. One held air, one would not. So, off to the RV service center. Long story short – leaking switch, overnight the part, stay around town till next day, switch installed, new leak in brass fixture, it’s Friday afternoon, we’re sorry, we broke the part and we won’t charge you for it, phones are down, new part should be here by Tuesday, how far were you planning on going……

Well, we are here in New Port Richey with Laura’s Mom. All is well. We will get back to Register RV in Brooksville, FL early next week and keep reminding ourselves about hubris and adjustment!