4/6/10

Let's talk about mullets.  And no, I don't mean the fish.  You know what I mean.  Halifax hockey hair.  The Carolina crash helmet.  The mullet.  Unlike some people, I don't harbor any animosity toward the mullet.  I dig the fact that people refuse to choose between business and party time.  Why not both?  It's the American way.  Business up front, party in the back.

So I was rolling across Illinois this morning when I approached a slow-moving pickup truck in the right lane.  I signaled my intentions and moved into the left lane in order to pass.  Anyone who drives a truck for a living can tell you what happened next.  The pickup truck sped up.  So I signaled my intentions and moved back into the right lane, behind the pickup truck.  Anyone who drives a truck for a living can tell you what happened next.  The pickup truck slowed down.  I got around the sucker eventually but, in the meantime, I was able to observe a masterpiece of a mullet on the driver's head.  Tight curls at the end, nice and wavy down the slope of the neck, just short enough on top to say, "I'm no skinhead but I'm still aerodynamic."  And it got me thinking.

While NASCAR lovers and Canadian hockey players may get credit for introducing the mullet into mainstream society, I think that I-70 is probably the main mullet transportation corridor in the United States.  Think about it.  The eastern terminus is in the Baltimore area, right?  Lots of mullets.  Then the road angles up into southern Pennsylvania.  Mullets and beards galore, sometimes on the men too.  Central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.  Come on.  It goes without saying.  St. Louis to Kansas City.  Ever heard of the Missouri Compromise?  I can't say that I've made a lot of observations further to the west along I-70, but I can definitely picture some Camaro cuts out in Topeka.  Even if the phenomenon ends there, I can't think of another road that would cover half the country with those lovable hairstyles.  Best of both worlds, baby.  If only I weren't a bald mofo...  The skullet does not meet with my approval.

{The preceding stream of consciousness was brough to you by some jagoff who couldn't decide how fast he wanted to drive.}

The timing of my trip through St. Louis was good in the sense that there wasn't much traffic when I crossed the bridge (at noon).  The timing was awful in the sense that some dude had just gone and gotten killed.  I won't join in the speculation about the mystery semi truck's alleged involvement.  The more likely scenario to me would be one in which the pickup truck's driver was distracted by a text message or something, but that's for the cops to figure out.  No internet lynch mob is going to bring the young man back to life either way.

This scene looks pretty familiar, n'est ce pas?

I heard on the radio that a helicopter was on the way and that the cops at the scene were saying that the road would be closed for "two or three hours."  The first option was that I could just set the brakes and take a two-hour break with everyone else on the road at the time.  Since I hadn't yet passed Lewis Road though, I had another option.  Some people were moving off the exit and I was able to shimmy my way over.

I was a little more fortunate than these suckers.  Since they were past the exit (#266), they were shit out of luck.  Nowhere to go, so they just had to set the brakes and kick back.

I wasn't entirely sure what would be the best approach for me to take, but I knew that I wasn't going to sit there and bake in the sun with no air conditioning for two hours.  I made the flip back onto the eastbound side of the road and took a look at the surface streets that I could see.  They didn't look too promising.  So I stayed on the eastbound freeway and went with my fallback option; Exit 272, MO-141 down to MO-30 and over to St. Clair.  This route worked well enough.  It was a hilly son of a gun, but my 20,000 pound payload wasn't too hard on me.

From the point where I caught up with the freeway again, everything was good.  Not much traffic, some clouds to help keep the temperature down a little, and a fantastic Italian BMT with double meat at the truck stop in St. Robert.  (They love their saints in this state, don't they?)  By the time I rolled into the terminal, the sadists in the inspection bay had gone home for the night.  That's one of the positives of an economic recession, I suppose.  In a cost-cutting effort, the inspection bay has ceased to be the 24/7 bane of our Joplin experience.  Now, when we arrive after hours, we proceed to the trailer repair bay for a more Laredo-like inspection.  None of those imaginary parts on the truck getting flagged for imaginary repairs.  (By 'imaginary,' of course, I mean that I have never heard of the parts in question.  This likely applies to roughly 80% of the truck.)  Homeboy in the trailer shop tonight fixed something on one of the axles and sent me on my way.  Nice and easy.

I drove over to the tractor shop and gave the service writer the rundown.  I need cold air from my vents and I could use some new parts for my driver's seat.  It had a sketchy armrest when I got the truck.  Then, somewhere along the way, I leaned on the other armrest and broke it.  Then, a while back, the little adjuster knob for the seat back got stripped or something and my seat went into permanent gangsta mode.  I don't mind keepin' it real and such, but after a long day on the road it's nice to have a seat back against which to lean.  So those were my requests.  Cold air and a functional driver's seat.  As noted by our friend from Arkansas, I should have asked for new batteries and I forgot.  All in due time though.  All in due time.

I guess I only come to this place once or twice a year on average, so my frame of reference is limited, but this is about as deserted as I've ever seen the Joplin terminal.  Hardly any trailers, hardly any trucks, and hardly any drivers.  Maybe this means that people are out on the road making money.  Or they fired everybody.  I don't know.  There had better be someone in that building to give me my damned gold ring in the morning.