I walked into the middle of that lot, past the DJ and the free burgers, in my clean shirt.
The salesman spotted me and his face fell, because he knew exactly which old fool he had sold a rotted camper to.
I did not yell. I have never seen the use in it.
I walked up to him with a folder, and beside me walked a man he did not know, an independent inspector I had hired the week before.
Because here is the thing about the word AS-IS.
AS-IS means you buy it with the faults you can see. It does not mean a man can hide the faults on purpose and call it fair.
My inspector had crawled under that camper, the way the salesman told me I should have. And what he found was not just rot. It was rot that somebody had puttied over, painted, and covered with a bolted-on panel so a buyer would never spot it.
You did not sell me a camper with a bad floor, I said, you sold me a bad floor with paint over it, and that is not AS-IS, that is a lie with a price tag.
The folder had the inspection report, with photographs, signed and dated.
Concealing a known defect to make a sale is fraud, plain and simple, and no sticker on a windshield covers it. I had already carried the whole folder to the state motor vehicle board that licenses dealers, and they had been very interested, because mine was not the only complaint in the drawer with this lot on it.
The DJ kept playing. But a small crowd had gathered close, folks from town who had come for a burger and stayed for the truth.
The board did not mess around. A dealer who conceals rot and hides behind AS-IS can lose the license that lets him sell at all, and this one was staring down exactly that.
He gave me my twelve thousand dollars back rather than lose everything. In writing. With an apology his lawyer plainly made him sign.
I took the money and bought a decent used camper from an honest dealer two towns over, one who told me every flaw it had before I even asked.
And this spring, forty years later than I promised, I am finally taking my wife around the country.
We left last Tuesday. The floor is solid under our feet. The roof does not leak.
Somewhere behind us, a lot that used to fly a whole lot of flags flies a good deal fewer.
Have a blessed day, I told that salesman, the day I picked up my check. I have had nothing but, ever since.