Tuesday reminded me of a book my daughter had when she was small. Alexander’s Terrible Horrible No-good Very Bad Day, I think it was. 
  Winter wood is stacked under the deck, hoses and sprinklers are put away for the season, and all I had to do Tuesday was put the camper on the truck and get ready for hunting. 
  Well, there were a couple of minor things I had to do, but I envisioned a relaxed day of getting ready for my favorite October activity. 
  I promised Barb I’d turn on the heating system before I left. That involves nothing more than building a fire in the boiler and turning on a switch. 
  The other thing would take no more than an hour.  
  My utility trailer had extremely stiff springs. I replaced them with the lightest I could find, but the new springs were still too stiff and hard for light loads. I’d planned to remove one of the two leaves in each spring. 
  I got up early, eager to get started. I fired up the boiler and turned on the pump. It didn’t run. I looked the system over to see what I’d forgotten to do. All was as it should be, and the electric valves had opened to send heat to the cool house. But the pump didn’t run. 
  The pump motor was getting hot, though. I turned it off, closed some valves, and pulled the pump out of the loop. The impeller didn’t want to turn, but after giving it a gentle nudge with a screwdriver and spinning it with my finger, it turned smoothly. Maybe power wasn’t getting all the way to the motor. 
  While checking the condenser, a voltmeter probe slipped and shorted a couple of terminals on the plug that feeds the motor. The plug is a printed circuit, and the short blew the solder paths right off the plug. Well, the power was getting that far, at least. 
  I replaced the vaporized electricity paths with copper wire hammered thin, but I couldn’t get the plug to seat in the socket in the motor. 
  I called the company that built the heating system. Turns out you can’t buy parts for that pump. If anything breaks, you buy a new one. 
  They save broken pumps for salvage, but the part I needed was one they didn’t have. 
  I filed the contacts I’d made as thin as I dared and it still wouldn’t plug in. I got a brighter light, saw what I was doing wrong, and finally the heating system ran. 
  Half the day was gone, though, so I’d have to hustle. 
  I pushed the trailer into the garage. I’d replaced the springs once, so I was on familiar ground. The job went fast, except the shackles weren’t threaded high enough to tighten down on a thin, single-leaf spring. 
  I’d had two pieces of soft steel lying around for years that would make perfect spacers. Except for one thing. In an effort to get rid of useless junk a few weeks ago, I threw them away. 
  I had to go to town to increase tire pressure in the truck before loading the camper on it. I’d get a bunch of big washers for spacers while I was at it. 
  I stopped at a new gas station for air and noticed a hubcap was missing. That was a surprise, as they are difficult to remove. Then I saw that a lug nut had loosened and was ready to fall off. The nut had pushed the hubcap off as it vibrated loose. 
  In 40 years of driving, I’d never had a lug nut loosen. I just got new tires mounted a few weeks ago. The tire man must have missed one when he tightened them. And if he missed one... 
  I popped the remaining hubcaps off and checked them all. They were tight. More time wasted. 
 The new station’s air supply goes only to 70 pounds. I need 80. I bought my washers, stopped at another station, and topped off the rear tires. 
  So then it was suppertime, and I was still packing clothes and checking things off my list. I’d be finished in another hour or two. 
  We’d invited friends over for dinner that evening. Good thing they couldn’t make it.