8/21/10

It's the small things that make or break a day sometimes.  I had three stops today - Howell, Flint, and Imlay City.  My first stop in Howell was, as tends to be the case, nice and simple.  The dairy manager works the day shift most of the time and today was no exception.  He pulled his six pallets of milk out of my truck and then observed that he didn't think he had any empties for me to take back with me.  I hadn't seen any in the staging area outside, so I concurred.  He signed the bills, we exchanged best wishes for the weekend, and I was on my way.

Stop #2 was in a part of Flint that we could safely call 'the hood.'  Now, plenty of you may be thinking to yourselves that all of Flint could be called 'the hood.'  To an extent you may be right, but trust me.  There are varying degrees.  This neighborhood was rough.  (As three sheriff's cars rolled down the street behind the store, I suggested that maybe they were going for coffee.  "They don't go for coffee around here," the store manager replied, without any humor whatsoever.  "That's an eviction.")  I had to back in from the aforementioned street, which is always fun, but at least this store had a loading dock.  Err, nevermind.  There was a hole in the side of the building that kinda looked like a loading dock.  It turns out that it was just a hole in the side of the building though.  I had to get the milk to the tailgate so that the dairy guy could pull it off with his fancy machine, just as I had done at the no-dock store on my previous trip.  Good thing I didn't have any empties to move around in there, eh?  It's the small things.

The third stop (in Burton) seemed like it might go pretty quickly.  The loading dock was a weird one to access, but it gets to the point where you don't even notice that stuff after a while.  I was only dropping off three and a half pallets.  How long could it take?  Then I stood out in the sun for ten minutes waiting for someone to answer the door.  After giving up and walking around through the front of the store, I found the dairy gal waiting at the loading dock.  Typical.  Then she piled her pallets of empty cases in the hallway where I had been putting the milk.  Those hallways aren't very spacious, to say the least.  So she couldn't get any milk and I couldn't get any empties.  I wound up having to take some time to rearrange things, then pull all of the empties out of the hallway, and then put the milk back into the hallway.  What a pain in the ass.  It's the small things.

The stop at Imlay City was quick and easy, as it usually seems to be.  I dropped off five pallets of milk and took seven pallets of empties within twenty minutes or so.  The fortunate side effect of the Burton situation was that I had rotated the milk for Imlay City to the rear of the trailer.  If that chick in Burton was content to waste my time, then at least I was going to get some benefit out of the delay.  It's the small things.

I wasn't sure what to expect on my way back down to Livonia, but I knew that I would be passing Detroit on I-696.  Tonight was one of the nights when the dorky old people gather and drive their dorky old cars up and down Woodward.  There was a huge line of brake lights as far as I could see when I passed Woodward, but none of the traffic was affecting the freeway.  Good deal.  It's the small things.

My shoulder workout for tonight wasn't bad.  I suspect that tomorrow might be a real SOB though.  The next workout in my rotation is my leg workout.  Nobody likes a leg workout to begin with, but it's a necessary evil for many of us.  Then you add in the fact that my legs are essentially a physiological train wreck and I'm not feeling too eager.  Then, to top it all off, tomorrow is Sunday.  $291 on two loads with six total stops.  That'll take me 12-13 hours or so.  I'll bet you can name one thing that I don't want to do after such a shift, can't you?  I may end up leaving the leg workout for Monday but, as long as I'm not too exhausted, I think I'll go ahead and do it tomorrow night.  That way I can spend Monday lying on the couch and feeling sorry for myself.  Yes indeed, lying on the couch is something to which I occasionally look forward these days.  It's the small things.