7/19/07

If my day was finished at 10am, it would have sounded something like this:

I tossed and turned all night. I couldn't get to sleep for the life of me, so I woke up completely exhausted to the sound of my alarm this morning. I went inside and grabbed a case of sodas and an energy drink. Okay, here, I'll pay with my American Exp... Wait a minute, where the hell is my American Express card? I had cash in my wallet, so I paid and headed out to the truck to find my card. I use that thing for all of my expenses, so a lost card is a major issue. I pay my bills on it, I buy groceries with it, I put gas in my car with it. I get a nice breakdown of my expenses at the end of the month and pile up reward points in the process. I called the Pilot in Hayti, MO to see if it was there. That's where I stopped for fuel yesterday, so I had my fingers crossed. Yep, it's there. At least it's not in the hands of some criminal, but there's still the issue of my card being in Missouri while I'm in Mississippi. Well, time to get to work, we'll deal with that later.

On the way to my dropoff, I drank the energy drink that I had purchased. I'm not going to say what it did to my stomach, but you know what it did to my stomach. It took 20 miles to find a place with room to park and use the toilet. That may have been the longest 20 miles of my life. Ah, the glamorous life of a truck driver.

So my day was off to a glorious start, only to be continued when I got to my customer. The signs clearly instructed drivers to park in the area to the right and walk their paperwork to the security booth. As soon as I got started with my check-in, here comes a Swift driver. 'S'tudents 'W'ith 'I'diots 'F'or 'T'rainers sounds about right today. The dumbass driver, with his trainer sitting right next to him, pulled up right next to the security booth. His piece of shit Volvo was idling at about 1200 rpms. So I couldn't hear what the guard was telling me. I had to keep asking her to repeat herself. She kept looking at me like I was a retard. Then, once she had me all checked in, I walked back to my truck. But, oh yeah, I got to wait for the Swifty to check in since he was blocking the entrance. And the clock struck ten.





That's what my blog would have said, if my day had ended at 10am. If my day had started at 10am, it would have sounded more like this...


After I got to the dock, I caught a nice nap while they unloaded my trailer. Since the warehouse required me to unhook and park in front of the trailer while they worked, I didn't get bounced around by the forklift. Once I was empty, they brought me my paperwork and sent me on my way. The aforementioned parking area had plenty of room for me to pull in and take a break.

I then made a call to a fellow CFI driver. He operates the website cfidrivers.com in an effort to share information with people thinking about a driving career at CFI, as well as some of us drivers who just like to argue about things. Our CEO has been making a concerted effort to communicate with the drivers and field their questions as everyone wonders about the effects of our upcoming merger with ConWay. The driver with whom I spoke today has been able to exchange thoughts with our CEO each afternoon. He asked if I would care to participate in a conference call between himself, our CEO, and a few other drivers tomorrow afternoon. Since there are really very few things in this world that concern me, I'm not quite sure I have any questions to ask. The fact that somebody thinks my input may be useful was enough reason to decide that I can come up with something to contribute by tomorrow, so I'll be participating in the call.

As I was on the phone, my communications unit beeped, apprising me of my next load. It was to be picked up in Meridian, Mississippi and delivered in Fridley, Minnesota. By golly, that will mean I'll be stopping for fuel at the Pilot in Hayti, Missouri. My American Express card will only be getting a very short vacation after all. Nice. Having to cancel the card and have one re-issued is just a royal pain in the ass. Now I can pick it up in the morning.

As I rolled past all of the catfish farms in Mississippi this afternoon, I started to think some down-home cooking sounded pretty good. Like yesterday though, I'm unfamiliar with the surroundings so I wasn't sure where I could stop. As I rolled past I-55 on MS-35, I saw a truck stop with a sign out front - "Down Home Cafe." Catfish filets, hush puppies, fries, beauty. Ahh, that sure did hit the spot.

I arrived at my customer a couple of hours later, five hours before my scheduled pick-up. My trailer was already loaded and ready to roll. I dropped my empty and idled along, looking for my new trailer. It wasn't among the rows of trailers along the fence. Nope, the fence line was full, so my loaded trailer was sitting down at the end all by itself. Easy to get to, easy to pull. The weight is only 14,000 pounds. Traffic was light, the sun was shining, and so on and so on.

It occurs to me as a write this that the majority of truck drivers I've met would prefer to focus on the first three hours of this rather pleasant day. I just don't get it. Days like today cause me to sincerely question whether I would like to take a job closer to home. I would experience the same monotony day after day, and days like today would only be memories.

I have to pass along a gem that I had the fortune of hearing on the radio tonight. I have very little respect for the folks at The Daily Show. They take potshots at anyone on the right end of the political spectrum, even though the hilarity can be found all over the political landscape. Credit must be given where credit is due though. Their bit lampooning the Democrats (even if unintentional) was awesome. The Senate is modeled after the British House of Lords, the respected, deliberate, thoughtful body in the political world. They serve longer terms so that they may be less swayed by short-term opinion polls. They require 60 votes for cloture so that they must work to achieve common ground. The Senate, my friends, has been reduced to this:



That is just too funny to ignore.