Since people seem so eager to head up north and pretend to live the simple life every weekend, I can't figure out why they spend so much money on all of the modern conveniences and entertainment when they're down here. If all you need is a campfire and a jet ski, then stop blowing your paychecks on iPods and the rest of that crap.
Sunday is the day when all of these weekend travelers come back home to reality, of course. And there I was this afternoon with my typical run up to Genesee County. The bad traffic doesn't persist all the way back home. Some people go east or west once they hit I-69. That cuts into the volume a little bit. Then some people take I-75 down toward Detroit while others take US-23 down toward Brighton. Once the roads go their separate ways, the traffic seems to be pretty reasonable. On the north side of Flint though, there's that glorious stretch where we're all on one road together for a little while.
I was returning to the dairy, having completed my first three deliveries without issue, at the point when everything came to a halt. As I noted above though, things seem to shake out once everyone gets on the appropriate freeway.
Before I got back down to Livonia, I received a call from the weekend dispatcher at work. It turns out that the dairy was having production issues today. As a consequence, one of our guys showed up to find that his load wouldn't be ready for a while. My second load, on the other hand, was ready to roll. So the other driver took my run and I was to take his run once I got back. Fair enough then.
There was one little issue to overcome with respect to the new arrangement. I had taken the time last night to come up with detailed directions to my originally scheduled three stops for tonight. My new assignment, much like the original, had three stops in the Toledo area. The problem was that I had been to exactly zero of those three stops. I decided to swing by the terminal and make copies of the directions to each store before making my drop/hook at the dairy and heading back out. While I was in the office, I took a look and saw that my pay for the day had increased by $17 as a result of the change in assignments.
Armed with a new trailer full of milk and three pages with rudimentary directions on them, I headed southward to finish out the night. Nothing in particular stood out about that second run but I did end up knocking on the door of the 14 hour rule by the time I made it back.
Having earned $308 for the day without any incidents, I was feeling somewhat content. I also was feeling somewhat exhausted. 14 hours is a long time for me to be working when I'm feeling normal. When it feels like I can't lift my arms - long, long night. I decided to skip tonight's leg workout and head home instead. Then I saw a truck driver stopped at a red light. Not only was he wearing one of those Goddamned sleeveless shirts that so many of them seem to love, but his arms were a big old mess. Not a pretty sight. Okay then... turning around and heading to the gym...
It's probably not ideal to hit the weights at 3am on a Sunday night, especially after a really long day of work. There was an unintended side benefit though. It turns out that, at 3am on a Sunday night, I'm not the only fat dude at Lifetime Fitness. Who knew? On second thought that's not much of a benefit, but it did make me chuckle. I do enjoy me a good chuckle whenever I get the chance. I actually managed to get some pretty solid lifting done, then dragged my jelly legs and droopy eyelids back home to call it a night. The ringer on my phone is off and my A/C is set to a frigid temperature. I'm pretty sure I won't be having any trouble sleeping this time around.
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