6/14/10

It's just a faint dot far off in the distance at the moment, but I think we can now say that the light at the end of the tunnel has been spotted.  It's basically the same chicken-or-egg deal every time I'm ready to get off the road for a while.  Either I run out of patience and therefore can't wait to get home, or I know that I'm heading home soon so I have no patience.  In related news...

I got rolling out of Pompano Beach at 6:15am today.  The drive from last night's parking space to this morning's consignee covered 29 miles and took a little over an hour.  The general flow of traffic wasn't too terrible for the most part, but there was an accident on I-95 around 135th Street that had everything tangled up.  By the time I got through that mess and made my way off the freeway, the streets were virtually deserted.

I rolled up to the consignee's gate at 7:20am and found it locked.  There was an intercom outside the gate and a sign saying "ring bell."  Guess what I did next.  Yep.  No answer though.  I hopped back into my truck and figured that I would try again once it got closer to my 8am appointment time.  There was a solid dirt area along the side of the road where I was able to park and wait.  Then... oh dear Lord no...

The ominous rumble from my belly was an unwelcome signal.  I actually had managed to sleep for a while last night, having consumed four Immodium tablets throughout the evening, so I was optimistic that things may have been back to normal.  Nope.  Not yet.  Parked along the side of a rinky-dink little industrial street with nary a toilet in sight - bad news.  I saw a box truck backing into another warehouse on the same street, so I walked over and hoped for the best.  The guy in the truck escorted me into the building and showed me to the restroom, at which point I... well, there's no need to go into that.

By this point it was time to head back over and try again to check in with my consignee.  A gentleman answered the intercom and opened the gate for me.  Once inside, I was assigned to a dock and unloaded very quickly.

Then one of those interesting transitions took place.  As I sat at the loading dock, I was hoping to get a new assignment so that I had somewhere to go once I was empty.  Such an assignment never came.  Then I found myself on the board at #2, so I pulled back into the same spot where I had parked and waited for the consignee to open.  Immediately after I set the brakes, I went from hoping for a new assignment to hoping for time to take a nap.

So of course I would end up somewhere squarely in the middle.  By the time I ingested another Immodium tablet and then tried to get to sleep, the satellite unit chirped at me with a new assignment.  Story of life.  My next pickup was only a few miles away, so I wrote down my order number and checked my directions, then headed over to the shipper.  I had to back in from the street, but it was a wide open street and the loading dock was easy to access.  No worries.

After a little over an hour, it was time to hit the road one more time.  [Note to self: Always bring cash when traveling to Miami. Always.]  I'm heading up to North Carolina for a Wednesday delivery, so I headed across to I-95 and started back out of town.  I didn't have enough money for the tolls to get from Miami to Fort Pierce, so I just stayed on the free road.  After all, I thought to myself, how bad could it be at 11:30am?  Much frustration ensued.  There was a recent study saying that a man can decide if he finds a woman attractive within a fraction of a second.  I don't disagree with that.  Personally, I think it's getting to the point where I can identify an asshole driver just as quickly. 

You know the deal.  Approach someone driving slowly → I slow down a little myself → The other driver slows down even more → There is a line of cars on my left → I wait (im)patiently for an opening → I move over to pass → The slow driver speeds up → Everyone else starts to pass me on the right → I finally get an opening and move back into the right lane →  The cocksucker slows back down → I start shouting → My head hurts → We repeat this process too many times to count.  A lot of people are piling on this humble and misunderstood public servant today, but I think he probably had just spent some time driving on I-95.  I feel your pain, homey.

Once I got up to Fort Pierce, the traffic shook out and things weren't so bad.  After a long break at the T/A in Vero Beach, I continued northward to the rest area below St. Augustine.  Good enough for today.  I'll have an easy day tomorrow and then finish off the ride on Wednesday before my scheduled delivery in the afternoon.

Hey, maybe I'll stop in South Carolina and try to get an autograph from Al Sharpton tomorrow.  He hasn't said that he'll be there or anything, but I'm sure he'll have to show up when he learns that the white guy who lost in the primary is now planning to try stealing the nomination from the black guy.  Reverand Al wouldn't be a hypocrite, after all.  Right?  However... err... awesome their reasons may have been, 59% of the voters in South Carolina chose Mr. Greene.  It's just a primary to see who loses to Jim Demint, but still, the election wasn't even close.  You get the representatives that you deserve.  I'll keep saying it until I die.

Once I make my delivery in North Carolina, I'm going to send in my request for home time and start working my way back to Michigan.  That light at the end of the tunnel should get a little brighter over the next few days.  For now though, we'll just hope that the present gastrointestinal status quo can be maintained.  So far, so good.