2/27/09

By golly, I guess we would have to call this a record-setting month for the ole Godfather. The first week of February saw me earning $1629.68 in gross pay, easily my best week since turning in the suit and tie for the driving shoes. The last week of February has now found me earning $582.88 in gross pay, easily my worst week since escaping the $.26 per mile training wage quite a while back. Records on both ends, within the same short month. How about that.

That bastard in Atlanta really did a number on me, didn't he? A day and a half of down time last week followed by two full days of down time this week. I would hazard a guess that he cost me easily a few hundred bucks. Oh well, at least I got a day of layover this time around. Otherwise we would have been flirting with a $500 week.

So yeah, foreshadowing and all that other literary nonsense aside, today wasn't too freaking productive. I got my next assignment while I was snoring away in Sherman. It seems that I was interviewing for the editor's job at some kind of website or something at the time. Who really knows when it comes to dreams though? They're tough to remember sometimes. In any case, I got out of bed and took a look at the Qualcomm. Yay. Back to bed.

When I finally got up and then hung around to finish out my break, it was time to head eastward to Paris, Texas. If Newark is the Paris of the Northeast and Gary is the Paris of the Midwest, I suppose that Paris may have to be the Paris of the Southwest, but I digress. I had to make a drop/hook there and then head a few hundred miles to Indianola, Mississippi. This would be a nice quick run to make use of what was left of my Friday. Oh no, though. Oh no. This one delivers Sunday evening. Appointment delivery -6:30pm. Yeah, seriously.

I got to the shipper in Paris a few hours early and checked in. My loaded trailer was ready to roll so that was a nice surprise. I had been expecting to wait at least a little while. I got out of there pretty quickly and hopped back on the road. I was engaged in the ill-advised process of rolling down the highway and looking at my truck stop directory when a thought occurred to me. 'Why not park now?' I had been thinking that I would drive until I got tired, but why? I mean, I have all day Saturday and all day Sunday to cover a fairly short drive. My truck is still running like shit. It was starting to rain. People kept cutting me off and then slowing down. Every time our dear leader opens his mouth, my IRA loses a thousand dollars (and I have always invested way more conservatively than people in their early 30's are "supposed to"). I'm fully convinced that the world is out to get me. Probably a good time to shut it down.

So I shut it down. I remembered a little gas station with a few truck parking spaces in Texarkana from the last time I stayed in this area. Good old Circle K. There's a Flying J a few miles further along but that particular one sucks balls. There's a rest area not far from here but I wasn't in the mood to do the 'vending machine for dinner' thing. Circle K it is then. Since I really don't have to drive much at all tomorrow, I certainly won't be setting an alarm. Sjoe was telling me that they sell frosty cold iced tea here, among other things. I had no idea.