It all started back on Wednesday morning. I was lying in bed, dreaming (most likely) about what I would say to Rachel McAdams about her
various hairstyles (spoiler alert:
rave reviews all-around), when my phone rang. I struggled across my bed and looked at the caller ID display. "Quickway"
Well, fuck me. Those of us on the afternoon shift get a two-day holiday break for Thanksgiving. Our terminal doesn't run an afternoon shift on Wednesday and then Thursday is the actual holiday. Two days off. Woo hoo!
So my guess was that I probably didn't want to hear whatever they had to say. I grabbed the phone and answered the call anyway. Screw it. Let's see what's up. There was a load available if I wanted it. It was a run down to our terminal in Newark, Ohio. Nine hours or so of drive time, plus a drop/hook, for a pretty decent payday. There were enough people below me on the seniority list to ensure that I had the option to say yea or nay. I said nay. Screw that. I'm going back to bed.
After I got up and moving later in the day, I received another call from Quickway. At the time I was upstairs doing whatever I was doing. My phone was downstairs. I went down to my bedroom to round up some dirty laundry a short time later and saw that I had missed a call. I had a voicemail message informing me of Friday's work assignment. Well, shit. (More on this later)
I did some laundry and then went out to buy a few groceries for Thursday's dinner. My father was up north, my older little brother had to work on Thanksgiving, and so did my sister. This meant that we had a three-person dinner planned. Since Mom was by herself in Lincoln Park and my younger little brother and I were out here, it was decided that Thanksgiving dinner would be held in Northville this year. No complaints from me. Mom said she was bringing the food, plus I would get another day to sleep late and relax. I just needed to make sure I had some things to drink, plus a few munchies to get us through the early part of the day.
Once Thursday arrived, I was well-rested from a lazy day on Wednesday and ready to enjoy a second day of relaxation. As an added bonus, Mom brought Molly (the family dog) with her. I had assumed that ole Molly was up north with Dad, but not this time around. She's a big dumb lovable black Lab and it's always fun to have her around. We were all set up for a good Thanksgiving.
After an excellent dinner, we sat around and watched football for a while. Then Mom and Molly went home. My brother and I watched a few episodes of the new
Beavis and Butthead and then called it a night.
And now we get to Friday. My typical Friday involves either one long run or two shorter ones most of the time. I'm generally home before midnight. Not this week though. This week I got to drive to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Don't bother checking a map. I'll save you the trouble. That's an overnight round trip. Normally I don't mind an occasional night out of town. When the 'overnight' part bleeds into my day off though, it annoys me. Nah, screw that. It pisses me off. Especially when the 'day off' in question is a Saturday during football season.
I went into work on Friday like a good little trooper. I needed directions to the consignee, given that I had never been there. The dispatcher had a map already printed out and the route looked prettty simple, so that was good. He gave me an EFS check for tolls and a motel and then sent me on my way.
My scheduled pull time was 1pm. My load was ready at 2pm. Fantastic.
My mapped route was I-76 to Carlisle, then I-81 up to Harrisburg. Perfectly logical, but I had been given only enough toll money to take I-80 into Pennsylvania and then angle down on US-322. I should have noticed the discrepancy ahead of time, but I was just rolling along and not thinking about the money. Then, when I got my toll ticket and saw that the trip from Pittsburgh to Carlisle was $90.65, I had a problem. I called the night dispatcher and he told me that I shouldn't have been given the map that showed the I-76 route. Fantastic.
I would have to take US-322 to I-80 on the way home, but there wasn't much I could do about the rest of the trip to Harrisburg. Just gonna have to pony up the cash and get the load delivered on time. They'd cut me another EFS check to make up the difference at my next fuel stop. I arrived for my 12am delivery appointment at 10:30pm. The OTR flashbacks commenced as I saw numerous trucks lined up along the edge of the customer's lot, awaiting their door assignments. Much to my suprise, I was sent to an available door right away.
Four hours later I was empty and sent on my way. OTR flashbacks indeed. Fantastic.
I had just over an hour left on my 14-hour clock by the time I got out of Harrisburg. Fortunately there was a motel with truck parking in Mifflin-something-or-other, around 40 miles up the road. I pulled in and settled into my room, then managed to fall asleep some time around 5am. Then I had to get up at 10:30 to catch a shower and pack up before the 11am checkout time. I can swing a short night's sleep without too much difficulty, as long as I manage to sleep past the civilized hour of 10am. What I couldn't do, however, was drive my truck after that short rest. [Obligatory rant about jackassed federal regulations goes here.] Apparently it was safer for me to sit around and stare at a clock for another two and a half hours than it was to simply drive home after I awoke. Fantastic.
The drive back to Livonia wasn't too bad. It was long and tedious, but good enough I suppose. I had told everyone back home not to tell me anything about the Notre Dame game. My original schedule would have had me home in time for kickoff. Then reality got in the way. An extra hour at the shipper followed by four hours at the consignee, and then the mandatory ten-hour break at the motel, were enough to make sure I would miss most of the game. So I would have to do the next best thing. I called my brother and told him to set the DVR to record the football game for me. Then I would just avoid any mention of the results until I had made it home and watched the recording.
Late in the evening, finally, I was back home in Northville. The endless bullshit of the weekend would soon be forgotten. I grabbed a cold beer. I plugged in the lights on my Christmas tree. I kicked back on my comfy recliner. I pressed 'play.' Game on!
A short time later I would surely be sitting here and writing a post about my Irish and their marked improvement throughout the course of the season. Surely I would be forced to make the obligatory and unoriginal wisecrack that Stanford's "Luck had run out." Michigan State couldn't possibly have been the only good team that Notre Dame would beat all year, right? The future would be looking bright for the lads in the gold helmets and khaki pants. After all that I had endured to get me to this point...
Yeah, it turns out that I'm not writing any of that stuff. My team still sucks. This post is a disappointment. (And it's a day late. I fell asleep halfway through the original draft Saturday night. It was a tiring weekend.)
