11/9/07

Have you ever yelled so loud that you had a headache the rest of the day? Yeah, me too. Most recently today. It was my stunning rendition of "FUCKING GO!!!" that did the trick. People stopping, again and again, for no apparent reason - it was just too much. I find that, right before a trip home, my patience on the road wears extremely thin. I haven't figured out exactly how it works. Sometimes I think that, after a certain number of days on the road, I'm out of patience and that tends to coincide with my decision to go home. Other times I think that, armed with the knowledge that I'll be home soon, my patience takes off a few days early. I think the second scenario is more likely. This trip home was planned way in advance, to see a concert, not because I got tired and needed a break. Anyhow...

Eight hours to Columbus, no major issues (aside from the aforementioned yelling incident) so it was pretty easy. I knew I was stopping in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania for fuel so I thought about calling an old girlfriend who lives a little ways south of Pittsburgh. Occasionally if I'm in the area we'll get together and have lunch, shoot the shit, or whatever. I chose not to call her today, on account of some suggestive text messages she sent me a while back. She's married, so that's really not cool, and I seem to have an inability to say "no" when faced with such circumstances in person. So I avoided the situation entirely. So, to those of you who think I'm a total degenerate, lookie there. I'm only about 90% gone.

I got to the customer a little before 1pm, which was the forklift guy's lunchtime, so they got going right at my 2pm appointment time. It gave me a chance to chill out and get rid of that headache, so I didn't mind. Plus, my internet access was pretty shitty last night so the good connection in Columbus allowed me to catch up with e-mails and so forth.

An hour after I sent in my empty call, I got my next assignment. Go home. My headache is back right now, as I sit on my couch. I'll share the phrase that I yelled this time, but I'm going to pay homage to the guys at SNL by replacing a certain word with the word 'shampoo.' Enjoy.

"How in the shampoo am I supposed to make any shampooing money when these mothershampooers send me home with no shampooing pay one shampooing day after I shampooing highlight for shampooing home. 2,300 shampooing miles and I'll be sitting on my shampooing ass for the next shampooing week! This is shampooing bullshit!" And there you have it.

If I could make one change to this company post-haste, this would be it. These knuckleheads probably thought they were doing me a favor by getting me home so quickly. 99% of the complaints they get regarding home time come from people who don't make it in five days. There should be some provision for people who want to be home for a reason (such as a concert next Wednesday). They get five days to get us home so, as a corollary, we have to highlight five days out. If I waited until today (the five day mark), I ran the risk of getting a long weekend run and being on my way to California from New Jersey right now. Then I would have no chance to make it back by Wednesday. So I highlighted yesterday. One run to Columbus, and a deadhead home. Since it's within the five day window, I drove from Columbus to Taylor without pay. This shit happens to me every time and there has to be a better way.

I got a comment from someone indicating that Oregon would be a suitable team for me, as a free agent college football fan. That could work, but those damn uniforms...

There's just something that I can't handle about it. Besides, the voting was 2-1 in favor of a different team. The winning majority are pictured below. I have no idea who they play this week, but I'm a huge fan (at least until next week).

ROLL TIDE!