Weekend Woes

DATELINE: WEST MEMPHIS, AR, 5:00 p.m. CST

Whoops! Sorry for neglecting you for a couple days there, gang. I have some unexpected free time now, so I'll get right to bringing you up to speed on my adventures.

I returned to work on Friday morning. (Many thanks to Mrs. R.T. for the early morning ride back to my truck.) After getting back at about 6:15 a.m. and sending in my "back to work" message, I had to wait about 90 minutes before my first assignment of this tour of duty came across. But the job was one I've done a couple times before: Pick up a load in Warren, MI and haul it down to Dry Ridge, KY, a 300-ish mile trip.

That run went just fine, and I still had 4 hours available to work for the day when I completed it at 4:30 p.m. I got my next assignment promptly; next up was a pickup in Louisville, KY at 7:00. So I just headed right over there and found the place. (It's always fun looking for new places after dark. But the directions to the company in the assignment were good, and finding it wasn't a problem.)

The pickup was a drop-and-hook and went quickly, but I had some concern about the trailer I was picking up. It's an older one, so there's always an increased chance of some problems with it. But since the pickup was at night, and my hours were running short, I couldn't give it a good once-over. But I hooked it up and headed off to find a place to park for the night, which turned out to be the Pilot in Lebanon Junction, KY, just a little ways south of Louisville. By the time I got there, I was too tired from the long day to pull out the laptop and write up an update for y'all, so I just grabbed some dinner and went to bed.

The load is (was, but I'll get to that in a minute) destined for a Monday morning delivery in the Fort Worth, TX area, so I had the whole weekend to make the drive. I planned to drive to our West Memphis, AR terminal on Saturday and the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Sunday. That would split the trip into two roughly equal portions. However, 15 miles after getting started on Saturday I came across a weigh station in KY. This load is one of those "special" ones for which I get paid an extra 3 cents per mile, so I have some placards on the trailer indicating such. Now, the Vehicle Enforcement Officers at weigh stations are required to inspect a certain number of trucks hauling these "special" loads, so while passing over the scales I got the indicator to pull over for an inspection. (An extra $.03 per mile doesn't really cover the lost time and aggravation of an inspection.)

Long story short, the Officer found a couple of substandard tires (tread depth too shallow) on the trailer and wrote me up for the violation. There's no fine involved for me, but I'd need to get the tires replaced soon. In consultation with USA's Roadside Assistance department, we eventually decided that I'd just make my way to West Memphis and get the work done there. So I completed the drive as planned, arrived at 3:00 p.m., and checked in at the shop. Of course, being understaffed and overworked, and set to close at 5:00, the shop wouldn't be able to get to my trailer that day, but they did have me unhook from the trailer so they could pull it into the shop and have it ready to get to work on it first thing this morning. At least DOT-violation fixes do get some priority at the terminals.

So I spent most of the rest of the afternoon in the drivers' lounge in one of the nice, soft, leather recliners watching college football on the big-screen TV. How nice it was to catch the surprising score of Michigan's win for the Little Brown Jug. Way to (finally!) go Blue! I have a nephew at the U of Minnesota--I'll have to get his e-mail address and rub it in a bit. (Or my sister, his mom, who often reads this drivel and also went to Michigan, can pass the "nyah-nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah" on to him.)

This morning I, naturally, woke up way early--before 5:00. The shop wouldn't open 'til 6:30, and it'd probably be at least a couple hours after that 'til they had the trailer fixed. So I killed some time trying to sleep, then eventually gave up, heated some beef stew for breakfast, attempted to take a shower here at the terminal, but the one open shower room was a mess, so I drove on over to the Pilot a mile down the road and got cleaned up there. Once back here at the terminal it was just more time to kill 'til about noon when I checked on the trailer in the shop. Verdict: they replaced a few tires but found a leaking brake valve. Of course, they don't have a replacement valve on hand, and they can't get one 'til tomorrow (Monday). So they can't get the trailer done 'til at least noon.

I relayed that news to Dispatch so they could make alternate plans for me. Remember, I need to be at our Van Buren, AR terminal (and HQ) on Tuesday for the training class, so I can't possibly stay with the load, deliver it when the trailer's fixed, and get to Van Buren on time. However, I've been waiting all afternoon and still haven't gotten word one from Dispatch since their message to "stand by...I'll check" after I let them know about the trailer. I really hate when these situations come up on the weekend, since the Dispatch staff on duty doesn't seem to have the authority to make major changes like my situation requires. I guess I'll be waiting 'til my Fleet Manager gets in Monday morning.

Anyway, here I sit in limbo, with extra time to fill you in on my goings-on. I should be taking advantage of this time to work on growing my poker experiment bankroll, but for some reason I'm not in the right frame of mind for that. Probably because of lasting fatigue (I never get enough sleep when I'm at home--too much to do and not enough time to do it) and distraction from the stress of wondering what's next. Oh well. Check back tomorrow to find out what they finally decide for me to do.

Thanks for reading today's story, and keep on truckin'.