Guatemala? You gonna start taking me seriously now? I'm a busy guy, you know. I can't keep reminding you of these things forever. Eventually the ghosts of your departed quantities are gonna screw up the whole universe. Knock it off.
Now that we've got that out of the way... shall we take on businesses that don't accept debit cards? Nah, it's a free country. They can demand whatever form of payment they like. I didn't want to spend my money at that little truck stop diner in Sanford anyway.
This morning began quite early, as mornings are often known to do. My delivery appointment was set for 8am. My alarm was set for 7am. Thunder woke me at 5am. Can't win 'em all, I suppose. Once the forklift guys showed up for work at 8am, they told me to go ahead and back in. One truck had arrived and backed in before I drove across the lot this morning, so I was second in line. Good enough.
Once I opened the doors to my trailer - umm - not so good. When I had picked up the load in Minnesota, the shippers had placed five pallets in the front of the trailer and another four toward the rear of the trailer. Trying to balance out the axles and so forth. So, prior to leaving, I had used three straps to secure the load. One strap held the first five pallets against the front of the trailer. The second strap went across the front of the last four pallets. The last strap went across the back of the last four pallets. All secure and away we went.
So now we get back to what I saw this morning. The strap that was across the back of the last four pallets was still there. The pallets were not. At some point during my trip, those last four pallets had shifted forward. The strap that was supposed to be holding them back had proven to be no match. Snapped right in half. First time I've ever seen that happen. Fortunately, the pallets hadn't skidded to either side and hadn't tipped over. They just went straight up against the ones at the front of the trailer. So I wound up with a row of nine pallets in the nose of the trailer and one broken strap. Coulda been worse.
After I was unloaded and on the board at #1, I headed into town and parked for a while. Instead of going back to the place where I stopped yesterday, I chose the little truck stop diner down the street. This was partially because I didn't appreciate the 'no overnight parking' bit from yesterday. It was also because the place with the diner would give me an easier time of getting back onto the highway if I had to take US-1 or US-15 out of town. So I headed in to grab a bite to eat. You already know what follows here. No credit cards, debit cards, or checks accepted. I very rarely have any money on me and today was no exception. No big deal though. I would just hit the ATM and grab a few bucks. No ATM? Screw it then. Back to bed.
By the time my satellite unit beeped me out of my peaceful slumber, the rain had moved out of town and the sun was burning brightly. Nice. My assignment was one of those that comes up every now and then, generally when we've either lost a customer outright or replaced it with a new customer. I had to take my empty to the Con-way yard in Charlotte, drop it off, and then head down to South Carolina to retrieve an empty from another place. I knew where the Con-way yard in Charlotte was, since I've already been there a handful of times. So I made the nice and easy drive over there and dropped off my trailer.
Next it was time to head southward and get an empty from Orangeburg, South Carolina. I didn't realize it until I was almost to Orangeburg, but I never received directions to the customer. I had received the name of the place though, so I punched it into one of my cell phone applications. The app got a GPS fix on my location and gave me directions that seemed pretty logical, so I didn't bother sending a message to my employers. My phone's directions were all good and I got checked in without incident.
The security lass told me to head back to the drop yard and grab an empty. Then I would have to drive over to the shipping office and get my gate pass signed. Sounds simple enough, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. After standing in line at the shipping window for 45 minutes, I heard the yard dog yelling at me. Apparently I had parked in a spot where I didn't belong. (I thought I was going to be there for 30 seconds. Sue me.) So he was ranting and raving about how I needed to move my truck. I said I would move it as soon as the shipping bimbo signed my gate pass and not a minute sooner. Homeboy was pissed. Fuck him though. Seriously. This was ridiculous.
After a minute or so, our little tête-à-tête had drawn the attention of the three guys who were still ahead of me in line. Since they were still waiting to pick up their loads and I just needed a signature, they let me skip ahead. Then the gal made sure to tell me how this particular yard dog was a major asshole, as if I hadn't noticed. She signed my pass and I went on my way. On balance I suppose that you could say I'm glad we lost that customer, whatever the reasons may have been. If it takes almost an hour to pick up an empty trailer, I would have no desire to try picking up an actual load at that place. Also, for whatever it's worth, the trailers that remained in the drop yard were mostly from the usual suspects - JB Hunt, Werner, Schneider, Heartland, etc. I can only surmise that the freight is cheap stuff that we're better off leaving for the bargain outfits.
Just before arriving in Orangeburg for that fiasco, I had received the plan summary for my next assignment. I would be picking up in Batesburg and heading to Vermont. My directory listed a truck stop on US-178 in Batesburg where I could spend the night, so across US-178 I headed. Then I somehow managed to drive right past the truck stop without even seeing it, so I had to re-route on the fly. I wound up hanging a left some other highway and found my way down to a different truck stop on the southern edge of town. Good enough.
My load is set to pick up at 1pm tomorrow and deliver at 7am on Friday. Coming in at around 1,050 miles, it's not an unreasonable amount of work for two days. That 1pm pickup may kick me in the ass when it comes to parking though. Depending on how long it takes to get loaded, I may end up looking for somewhere to park in the northeast tomorrow, well after dark. That's generally a recipe for failure but we'll just have to see how it goes. I think I'll head over a couple of hours early and try my luck just in case.
Until then, we focus on the bright side. No alarm clock tomorrow. Beauty.
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