8/18/07

Who do I really want to be right now? Am I the Christian lad who always tries to remember that God will test us sometimes? To some extent, yes. Am I a pissed-off working class stiff who thinks the world is out to get me? Not really, no. Am I some kind of zen weirdo who needs to meditate on the deeper meaning of it all? Nah, I think I just need a beer and I can't have a drink out here. My patience is wearing thin.

I woke up this morning and finished the run into the Fort Worth suburbs. Some of the farmland along the way looked like the mighty Mississippi roaring through. I've seen flooded fields plenty of times, but the velocity with which this water was flowing seemed truly amazing. There were a few spots where the flooding actually consumed the right lane of the interstate, but the traffic was light enough that there weren't any real delays. One brief rainstorm crossed my path, but it got the bugs off the windshield so it was all good.

At the customer I was told to drop my loaded trailer against the building and given the number of an empty to retrieve. Drop along the building, check. Pick up empty... no. That empty wasn't there. I headed back to the guard booth to ask if I could just grab any empty. No, it had to be entered into the computer, so here was another to try. Back to the lot... no. That one wasn't there either. Back to the guard. Here's another to try.

At this point, I heard the little devil on my shoulder whispering to me. My truck has a 13-speed Eaton Fuller transmission. Thirteen forward gears and, more importantly at that moment, two reverse gears. I had never used the high reverse gear before, but there was nothing but an empty lot behind me and I was in the mood, so up went the divider and out went the clutch. Freaking sweet! This truck hauls ass in reverse if you let it. I have no earthly idea why they would make a truck go that fast in reverse but it was pretty fun.

The third time was the charm in terms of finding my assigned empty, but the trailer itself was sorely lacking in the charm department. We've bought a lot of new trailers from Wabash in Lafayette, Indiana over the last year. This one is brand new. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, the wheel seals seem to be a problem with these new trailers. My left front wheel had grease all over the inside and the hub seal appeared to be the culprit. I'm not a mechanic and I don't play one on the internet, but a leaking hub seal is a problem so I had to make a call to road service. I could go ahead and bitch about the asshole who dropped off a trailer with a bad wheel, but what's the difference at this point? They told me to go to either the T/A in Denton or the one on the south side of Dallas. Since I was already north of Fort Worth, Denton sounded like the logical choice.

I started north on 35W and made a call to the Lancaster terminal. I needed to apprise the dispatcher there of the trailer situation. "Why are they sending you to Denton?" Um, cause it's closer than the south side of Dallas? "But that's (south Dallas) where we are." Um, are you going to fix my trailer wheel? "Fine, I'll dispatch you to Denton then." I have no idea what in the hell that was all about. Maybe she just really wanted to see me. Who knows?

I got to the T/A and went inside to tell the shop what I needed. They were training a new guy and, even though he looked the part of the mechanic, he knew less about trucks than I do. That's saying a lot. Between waiting for CFI's road service department to answer the phone and explaining to this moron that my tire is fine (hub and tire are not the same thing), it was a lengthy process. They then told me that it would be a couple of hours and they would call my cell phone when they had a bay for me.

I went out to the lot, parked the truck, and headed in for some gourmet Taco Bell cuisine. Soft tacos with no lettuce, one of life's simple pleasures... An hour went by, then two, then three, four, four and a half, what the fuck? I was on the phone with a friend of mine when my brother beeped in to share his thoughts on Brady Quinn's pro debut. My brother drove down from Detroit to Cleveland to watch the game and said the place went nuts for Quinn's performance, albeit in a mop-up role. I talked with him for a few minutes, then clicked back over and told my friend I needed to head in and see what these people were doing. At that moment the shop beeped in and told me to pull the truck around.

When I got around to the back of the shop I saw that it was going to be a tricky entry. The way the shop is situated, I had to make a pretty tight u-turn back toward the bays and cleared the concrete post outside the entrance by four or five inches. If the shop were in the same location, but the bays faced the side, you could pull right in and out, no worries. Whatever man, I'm not an architect either. Once inside, the guy did about a 30 second repair and then gave me the bill for $80. Quite a racket these guys are in. I signed for the work to be put on CFI's account and then got back on the board, at #5.

So here I am, wondering if I'm on candid camera or just having a string of bad luck. Another wasted day in the books, and I'd almost feel better about it if someone was watching on TV and enjoying a good laugh at my expense. With only four trucks ahead of me and a ton of hours available to me, I should have a chance at a nice day of work tomorrow. Since I'm not exactly a fan of the planners in Joplin, I can hold out some hope that the local dispatchers in Lancaster can do a better job of utilizing my time. I don't imagine I should expect much, but a boy can dream, right?

Three days into the pay period, I'm just over $500. A good few days of running should have me on my way to making up some ground on the last pay period, so that's what I'm hoping to see.