Disclaimer: This short story was originally intended to serve as the introduction to my first book, aptly titled "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" Chronicles of Chaos and Courage. However, thanks to my chronic inability to resist babbling on endlessly—pausing only for catastrophes of biblical proportions (perhaps a meteor the size of Nebraska would do the trick)—this little intro ballooned far beyond its intended scope.
The inevitable result? A mind far more disciplined than mine—my wife’s, naturally—has seized control of the task. This, of course, leaves me free to focus on what I do best: rambling unabated in this story.
What could possibly compel me to write this book—and, more importantly, why on earth would you bother to read it? Let’s face it: the literary world is stuffed to the brim with books that proclaim themselves “riveting” while in actuality bearing the charm of an elevator music playlist. Then, of course, there are those so mind-numbingly dull that midway through page one, you’ll wish you’d made the thrilling choice to arrange your sock drawer in alphabetical order instead.
So why did I decide to celebrate my collection of absurd, chaotic, and occasionally insane misadventures on paper—something I’ve meant to do for years but was too busy creating new ones to get around to? To explain, we’ll have to rewind to that glorious time of uncertainty and existential crises: 2022/2023.
In a nutshell, as is often the case with me, it all began with a meticulously crafted plan. To acquire a decrepit old Range Rover Classic, resurrect it from junkyard purgatory into a well-oiled, smoothly running domicile on wheels, and embark on a grand voyage to America with my ever-patient and equally adventurous companion—my wife.
A crucial piece of this master plan involved carving out a lucrative niche selling antique Volkswagen minibuses, imported—via Germany—from the industrious and ever-diligent country of Brazil.
From there, we would entrust our fate to a reliable friend in Germany, confident he’d hold up his end of the bargain: pay his share and ship the cars over. After all, what could possibly go wrong when you mix friendship with business, drizzle in a little international logistics, and serve it all with a generous spoonful of intercontinental bureaucracy?
The pesky business of dealing with visas and work permits I decided to shelve for later—preferably after the first million dollars rolled in. By then, most bureaucratic hurdles could be elegantly smoothed over by employing a time-tested strategy I like to call “the African way.”
As I said: What could possibly go wrong? It was foolproof. Or so I thought.
Christmas 2021 found us raising a toast to the successful completion of the Range Rover project—though “successful” might be overstating it. The heater, for instance, stubbornly refused to work. A minor inconvenience, I assured myself, given our plan to drive from balmy Florida up to Wyoming, where temperatures were a brisk -20°F. There was also the matter of the perpetually leaking engine, but I dismissed it, confidently reasoning that, once in America, there’d be no risk of foreign powers—say, the USA—sneaking into the car to reclaim this mobile oilfield.
Our merry trio—my wife, my vehicle, and me—landed in Florida in February 2022, kicking off an adventurous trek to Wyoming. Predictably, the project car decided to showcase its "quirks," though I was mildly surprised by just how enthusiastic it was about acting up. Nevertheless, we rolled into our favourite state of choice a month later, greeted by a charming blizzard. The minor detail of nearly freezing to death—courtesy of the perpetually uncooperative heater—was little more than a footnote for us hardened travellers. We’d endured far worse snowstorms before, notably during a cross-country motorcycle tour in Montana, where the weather had ambitions of becoming our fourth traveling companion.
As I had predicted—and for once, reality had the decency to align with my plan—importing my Range Rover Classic went off without a hitch. Naturally, this success owed itself entirely to my unwavering policy of relying on no one but myself, meticulously attending to every detail with the saint-like patience and assistance of my wife. Unfortunately, my omnipresence is yet to be perfected, and therein lies the rub. The moment a third party dares to enter the equation, it’s as if chaos, mayhem, and disaster are summoned by some cosmic signal, eagerly waiting to pounce.
Since our previous Wyoming experiences mostly revolved around rodeos and working on a horse guest ranch—though calling it a "dude ranch" would have been far too generous, as that term implies at least a passing acquaintance with luxury, which this place painfully lacked, as evidenced by its charmingly authentic 1800s-style outhouse—the only two towns we were intimately familiar with were Cody and Thermopolis.
Our well-thought-out master plan began with visiting an old—literally, almost geriatric—friend of mine. Second on the list was equipping the Range Rover with a shiny new Wyoming license plate, which meant our first stop was the 2,500-soul town of Thermopolis, affectionately dubbed "Thermop." Incidentally, finding a place to sleep for the night came in at a distant third on our list of priorities. This, perhaps, says more about our mindset than any Rorschach test ever could. After all, it was -20°F and snowing, which made the notion of sleeping in the car less of a choice and more of a slow death wish.
My geriatric friend hadn’t aged a day since I’d last seen him a few years back—perhaps, once you cross a certain threshold on life’s timeline, you just stop aging visibly. I don’t know. Either way, he was still fit as a fiddle despite his advanced years. I took the requisite time—30 seconds at most—to quickly fill him in on our grand plans and, more importantly, to inquire if he had any suggestions for a place to hunker down for the night and escape the relentless blizzard.
He offered us to roll out our sleeping bags in his waiting room—he was a chiropractor—if we promised to be out the next morning at 5.30 am before the first patients would arrive. We declined and headed straight to the town hall, eager to get our vehicle americanised.
There, luck struck again, and we ran into one of the kindest individuals we had ever met. As always, no matter if in Africa, America, Mexico—perhaps not in Australia, those people are different but thats another story—whenever we let life run its course the universe was always right there to provide us with a heavenly gift. In this instance her name was Karen and she was the deputy chief of her section at town hall. She quickly went over all the legal necessities to get our car registered and—after asking were we would stay the night and giving us a questioning look because we hadn’t planed anything yet—disclosed that she owned two houses, only one occupied by her and her husband. Since they could sleep in only one house it would have been a shame to let us die a slow, agonising death due to the effects of thermodynamics, so she offered to meet us after work and give us her spare house for a few days.
Unbeknownst to any of us—probably for the best—those “few days” in Karen and Rod’s spare house stretched into nearly 18 months, with a brief interlude of reverting to our mobile domicile. During that time, Karen and Rod became part of the small, elusive group of people scattered across continents whom we genuinely consider friends—and with whom we still stay in touch.
What none of us could have foreseen—how could we?—was that we were about to move in with none other than the real Mr Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus. Karen and Rod, in their boundless kindness, also had a penchant for spreading joy. Disguised in Santa robes, they spent the weeks before Christmas visiting kindergartens and elementary schools, handing out sweets to wide-eyed children.
It was a heartwarming revelation, though somewhat ironic, given that at the time we were struggling to keep our own version of Christmas cheer from being completely buried under Wyoming’s endless blizzards and bureaucratic hurdles.
However, after a brief period of settling in—we felt at home almost immediately, actually—we noticed a rather inconvenient development: my trusted friend and business partner back in Germany appeared to have conveniently forgotten all about our brilliant plan to revolutionise the American market with marvellous mechanical handiwork—restored VW minibuses from Brazil. By unceremoniously ceasing his share of the payments, he single-handedly brought our ambitious venture to a screeching halt.
One day, we were standing on the cusp of achieving the elusive American Dream; the next, we were wading through the rubble of a total disaster. Our meticulously crafted plan unraveled faster than a politician’s campaign promises the day after the election.
This, of course, meant we were once again in desperate need of a new plan since, unlike normal people, we hadn’t bothered to prepare an alternative fallback scheme. The absence of a Plan B wasn’t entirely down to my questionable planning abilities—though I’ll admit they played their part, as I tend to exist firmly in the present, blissfully unburdened by future worries or past regrets. No, the real reason lay in my deeply held belief that having a backup plan is tantamount to sabotaging Plan A from the get-go. After all, why give yourself an escape hatch when you could charge headfirst into chaos, fully committed?
Things are as they are, and what will be, will be. True to our life’s credo, we did what we do best—aside from drinking coffee, of course—and wandered off to go shopping.
There are, naturally, a few challenges when you live 120 miles away from the nearest busy freeway connecting even busier cities. But that remoteness was precisely why we chose this location in the first place—to be as far away from the noise and chaos of metropolitan life as humanly possible.
This decision, however, posed a minor inconvenience when one is suddenly gripped by the urge to embark on a serious shopping spree. Fortunately, all was not lost. Our beloved western town of Cody, Wyoming, was a mere 80 miles away—a distance which, by urbanite standards, translates roughly to “just three blocks over.”
Cody had it all: a western boot shop, a western clothing store, and, to round things off perfectly—a Walmart. What more could anyone possibly desire?
Cheerfully—though in the pains of yet another existential crisis—we climbed into our fickle Range Rover. Miraculously, it started without a single complaint. Perhaps this temperamental, mobile mayhem had developed a sixth sense. It seemed to know that any tantrum at this particular moment would have prompted me to drive this ancient piece of British rubbish straight to the nearest junkyard and personally oversee its transformation into a flattened sheet of scrap metal.
Five miles into our journey to Cody—the first leg of what would, unbeknownst to us, serve as the groundwork for our next existential disaster—we encountered the unexpected. Two low-flying Piper Super Cubs buzzed directly over our heads, their droning engines momentarily drowning out the cacophony of our clattering Range Rover. I nearly herniated a disc twisting my neck like an owl on caffeine, desperate to catch a glimpse of the planes. Unfortunately, by the time the arthritic window mechanism had grudgingly rolled down the glass, the planes were little more than specks on the horizon, already preparing to land at the nearby county airport.
On a side note:
The second leg of our impending personal catastrophe would be triggered by Hollywood’s audacious decision to release the cinematic juggernaut Top Gun: Maverick, starring none other than the ever-diminutive yet undeniably captivating Tom Cruise. Now, I can already sense your skepticism—and you’re not wrong. What could two outdated, painfully slow airplanes—essentially held together by cheap canvas and wishful thinking—buzzing overhead in the wilds of Wyoming possibly have in common with the sleek, deadly F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets tearing through the stratosphere in the movie? They're as similar as diarrhoea and dessert, or as Angela Merkel and Claudia Schiffer. One is functional, unglamorous, and painfully unavoidable; the other, well, is dessert. Or Claudia Schiffer.
Either way, I concede, there’s only the faintest connection and the comparison is as mismatched as it is laughable, and let’s face it: even dead people are more entertaining to modern aviators than Piper Super Cubs.
But hear me out—this is the point that everyone, except me of course, seems to be missing: Aside from both moving through the air thanks to Newton’s Third Law of Dynamics and Bernoulli’s Principle, the connection between these machines is entirely emotional. You see, when I watched the original Top Gun back in the '80s, I thought to myself, “Gee, if everything else fails in life, I’ll just become a pilot.”
Somehow, that—admittedly naïve—thought lodged itself firmly in my brain and refused to budge. What can you do? It lingered through the years like the aftermath of that unfortunate bout of diarrhoea—clinging stubbornly to the toilet bowl, refusing to be flushed away no matter how much you tried to forget it. Finally, in my early forties, I found myself standing on the precipice of an existential turning point. My life, once a whirlwind of ambition, had deteriorated into a drab routine of business deals and relentless pursuit of money.
Unlike my companions, who opted to dull the ache of existence with copious amounts of alcohol—or, in more extreme cases, by hanging themselves from rafters—I decided to make good on my decades-old promise. I would finally become an aviator. My first and only love in the world of aviation was a Piper Super Cub, which, as you can now see, brings us neatly full circle.
Back in our Range Rover—because impulsive decisions are my specialty—I wrenched the steering wheel so violently the column nearly came off, all in a desperate attempt to make the left turn into the airport. In a functional car, sure, I could’ve braked gently and glided into the entrance. But in our temperamental heap, the brakes were more of a polite suggestion. By the time they even considered working, we’d probably have overshot the turn and ended up in the next county.
The vehicle miraculously made the turn at a speed I wouldn’t have dared attempt under sane conditions—without shedding a single vital part, at least none that I noticed—and skidded to a stop in front of the tiny terminal, narrowly missing the door and coming within inches of parking itself directly on the welcome mat inside.
I launched myself out of the car, yanking the door open and slamming it shut so fast it nearly came off its rusty hinges. Before the echo of the slam had even faded, I was already storming onto the apron, zeroed in on a particular yellow Super Cub like a moth to a flame.
Now, this sort of reckless behaviour at a normal airport would’ve earned me a swift tasering—probably courtesy of some ex-mall security dweeb turned government "enforcer" with a badge from the most inept agency on the planet, the TSA. And let’s be honest, the only thing keeping the TSA from being dead last is the fact that the Afghan Space Program Agency doesn’t exist yet.
In all likelihood, I’d have woken up hours later en route to America’s own version of Club Med: Guantanamo Bay.
But this was Wyoming. Here, storming past the Fixed Base Operator (FBO) and the plane’s pilot—blatantly ignoring them both—resulted in absolutely nothing happening. No tasers. No arrests. Just an air of mild curiosity, as if I were a stray cow that had wandered onto the tarmac.
The only person even mildly astonished was my wife. To her, it must have appeared as though I had entered a cosmic wormhole, propelling me to the apron at a speed so phenomenal that no explanation—short of “beamed up by Scotty”—would suffice. I had, of course, left her unceremoniously in the vehicle. But then again, she’d seen worse in the course of our partnership, so this hardly registered on her list of unusual occurrences.
Once at the yellow Super Cub, I inspected it with a level of scrutiny that might have suggested I was about to buy the thing. My intense examination eventually drew the pilot over, curiosity etched across his face. Without much delay—and certainly without any prompting—I launched into the whole saga of my flying escapades in Africa, Canada, and the USA, specifically involving this very type of aircraft.
Somehow, this unsolicited autobiography transformed the encounter into what can only be described as an impromptu job interview. The pilot revealed that the USDA, his employer, was in dire need of pilots experienced in low-level flying. In hindsight, I wish he had kept his mouth shut. His suggestion planted a seed—a seed that should have been doused with industrial weed killer before it could sprout into the wild notion of another career.
Before I could fully process the implications, the FBO shuffled over. Clearly unimpressed by my aviation résumé—or perhaps entirely ignorant of it—he asked if I was looking for a job mowing the airport meadows and clearing runways with a tractor. The contrast between the two propositions was about as stark as choosing between piloting a Super Cub and cleaning its tires with a toothbrush.
Naturally, I declined the FBO's job offer, pointing toward the hard plastic seat of his tractor parked in the distance and citing back pain and haemorrhoids as my unimpeachable excuse. He, in turn, informed me with unsettling enthusiasm that he had seat cushions and a delightful assortment of pillows available. At that point, I decided it was high time to redirect my attention to my lovely wife and make a dignified exit from the premises.
I assured them both—the pilot and the FBO—that I would thoroughly consider their propositions. A bold-faced lie, of course. My interest had already ignited like a forest fire after a decade-long Somali-style drought. I was doomed, plain and simple. All that remained to unleash a full-blown inferno was a single, fateful spark—which I knew would come the following month when Hollywood unleashed Top Gun: Maverick upon the unsuspecting world.
As we drove away, I recounted the entire encounter to my wife, complete with dramatised details and my feeble attempt at resisting destiny. She responded with a knowing smile and a glint of mischief in her eye.
“Looks like you’re getting back into the cockpit again, doesn’t it?”
She didn’t have to say it twice. I was already halfway there in my mind, soaring through the skies in a Super Cub, hopelessly surrendering to my fate.
Happy as a clam and with spirits soaring—the flaming wreckage of our Brazilian minibus venture and my German business partner's dubious reliability began to fade in life’s rearview mirror, much like a flower nurtured with Agent Orange—we resumed our slow, meandering voyage to Cody.
Could this be it? The golden ticket to the long-dreamed-of green card in America? The idea was beguiling. A future free from the indignity of coughing up $10,000 and tying the knot with some girl from rural North Dakota just to hoodwink my way into residency. Who wouldn’t leap at the chance?
Yet the prospect of working for the government left me emotionally torn. On one hand, I nurture an instinctive and passionate loathing for federal bureaucrats—regardless of nationality. On the other, this USDA outfit (about which I knew precisely nothing) might just have the muscle to yank the necessary strings and make it happen.
After all, nothing—absolutely nothing—is beyond the government’s reach. Except, of course, for achieving world peace. Or balancing a budget. Or making the DMV even slightly tolerable…
A few days after this happy—or at least mildly amusing—encounter, I drove my wife to Salt Lake City. She had a flight to catch back to Germany, where she’d be attending to family matters, job responsibilities, and, hopefully, wrestling some funds out of our future former business partner. If nothing else, she could deliver a swift and well-deserved kick to his nether regions as a token of appreciation for abandoning us the moment we left his property.
This left me with the unenviable task of figuring out how to proceed—an undertaking that, sadly, requires foresight, a concept as foreign to me as quantum physics to a goldfish. Naturally, I chose the path of least resistance: letting life run its course and hoping for the best.
Returning from Salt Lake City to our “temporary” accommodations with the Santa family, I had barely settled in when, at the unholy hour of 6:30 a.m., my phone rang. It was the FBO. He had been thinking.
Now, given my own dismal track record with the whole “thinking” thing, I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of someone else dragging me into their mental endeavours. His invitation to swing by the airport was delivered with the cryptic and mildly ominous declaration: “We need to talk.”
What transpired next—and how a casual visit to the movies in Cody launched me on a trajectory I never saw coming—I’ll share with you next week.
Marcel Romdane, out.
Mr. Claus, Mrs. Santa and me :). The tractors with the hard seats... Almost an Empire... Brazilian Bullis
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