Was this a bad day?

Things were going so good, for months on end, that I knew this day would have to arrive. Heck, on Monday, I was out in the lower half of western Pennsylvania on a ten-drop mission. It was young in the day, my third stop, when I heard a terrible hissing from the space in between truck and trailer. An airline had sprung a leak, less than a favorable situation for someone as mechanically backward such as me. For some reason, it didn’t faze me. I called our shop, who called road service while I went about devouring some of my Wife’s delicious homemade chili. If anything, I found my predicament nothing more than good timing. I was hungry, almost always am. I spend much of my waking hours somewhere in between starving and passing out from malnourishment. 

I guess I probably should have been worried that I would never get the remaining seven stops off that day. I wasn’t, and I did anyway. Road service showed up in record time, and I was on my way in less than an hour and one half. On my drive home, I remember thinking that nothing fazes me much with this job anymore. I don’t think that is bad, and I am still careful with my work, my truck, and my mind. One day blends into the next, everything so routine that I do not even write about trucking much anymore. 

I still had that feeling: one day would come a challenge. I couldn’t have, wouldn’t have predicted it would be today, in New England of all places. Only yesterday I was in Vermont, had so much fun that I will probably write about that tomorrow. As for today, oh where do I begin?

It started like any other trip: with a fresh trailer-load of furniture assigned to me. Three stops in Maine, Four stops in New Hampshire, and one lonely one in Massachusetts. Nine stops in all, each of them scheduled for today. Rock and Roll.

The trouble began back at our warehouse in Leesport. It began before some poor bastard was tasked with the mundane assignment of dragging my loaded trailer up to our covert operational point in Massachusetts, and then hauling an empty one back the way he came. The real problems were set in motion when they placed the last piece of furniture on the trailer and strapped it all in. For some reason, they used a fancy contraption with gears, handles, and a metal assembly that served as the lock/unlock mechanism for the strap. This darn thing caused me many delays today. At more than one stop, customers hopped up in the trailer and had to help me figure it out. They were all nice about it; none letting me leave the scene feeling they knew I was mechanically idiotic. (I usually have an overabundance of our simple standard ones in the side box of my truck. Today, when I went to get one, they had disappeared.)

The other disheartening variable to my day was unfamiliarity with my stops. I had never been to six of the nine, an impossible ratio after almost six years with this outfit. By nature, it tends to slow me down. I need to ask three different GPS systems their opinion of the best way. I also have to check a paper trucking map. Low bridges can ruin my day; a truck restricted route can cost me a ticket. Thankfully, the burden is lessened because I have my Friend Gary Mazzela (who I like to call G Mazz) for assistance. I talked to him over seventy times today. Without his guidance, I’d probably be sitting in the dark corner of some padded room in an institution of some sort. Instead of relaxing comfortably in my truck tonight, I’d spend the evening rocking back and forth from my place on the floor while softly chanting, “Make it all go away.”

My second stop in Maine was one Gary described as a definite “Oh boy” customer. He wasn’t kidding either. It was a tight neighborhood for a tractor-trailer. There was a funeral a block prior to my destination, packing the streets with cars, sad people dressed in black all over the place. I found where I needed to be, a side street off the main street. All I had to do was back up into a very small parking lot. To make matters worse, I had to do it on the side I could not see. Because I am good, it did not take me too long to do. It still wasn’t easy. It never is when you’re pushing a forty eight foot box backward towards the unknown, hoping it doesn’t turn from tough to expensive. When I got in the truck to leave, I noticed Gary had sent me a text, I think regarding how easy his day was going. Before I pulled away, I sent him one that said, “You weren’t kidding about this place. My ass is sweating.” He wrote back, “Lmao.” (Note to older readers: That’s how the kids talk these days. Google it.) I wasn’t trying to be funny; I was stating a simple fact of what this stop had done to me.

Two stops later, In Rochester, New Hampshire, disaster struck again, and Gary didn’t warn me about it. I was following my GPS when I ran into the biggest construction scene I have ever seen. It was so confusing I no longer had any idea where I was. I noticed the exit appear on the screen of the GPS display, but it was non-existent in real life. I giggled an insane man’s giggle as I watched all three guidance systems recalculating.  There’s nothing like losing more time while I was already low on funds. I still don’t know how I ever found the place. 

When I did find it, it was a logistical nightmare all its own.  Gary had told me I could drive around back, but the construction had wiped away that option. I walked the scene and decided I’d have to do another white knuckled backing maneuver, down a skinny driveway this time. It wasn’t so bad; my ass was dry the entire time I was there. After I finished unloading though, the loading strap became a real issue. I couldn’t make it long enough to secure what was left in the trailer. For some reason, it had no problem getting shorter, contributing to me becoming as close to I ever been to a full mental breakdown.  I wasted away another fifteen minutes wrangling with that darn thing; a ridiculous amount of time gone forever, for such a simple task.

My fifth stop in New Hampshire was another humdinger, a peculiar backing situation. I had to tap into my superior skills once again. I did more backing in strange situations today than I have ever done. It was here the hunger really began to set in.

I had behaved with my nutrition in the morning. At seven, I had oatmeal and yogurt. It was now two-thirty in the afternoon. I was already hungry when I got to my first stop at ten in the morning. I saw a Burger King there and really wanted a bacon and egg sandwich. I couldn’t risk the time then, and I sure as hell couldn’t risk it now-  only two and a half hours to get four more stops off. I hate being that hungry. I can’t hear songs on the radio, notice a pretty house along the road or attractive girls on the sidewalks. I was so miserable that I wondered if this is what it’s like to be my Wife before she has had her first cup of coffee in the morning. I had a job to do, so I soldiered on.

I arrived at my second to last stop at four in the afternoon. The paperwork says they close at four but they still unloaded me. I wouldn’t have cared if they hadn’t. To be turned away was to go find some food. After we were done, I couldn’t take it any longer. I gave up. My GPS said I’d make my last stop at five, when they closed. “Screw it,” I thought and went in the back of my cab and microwaved the best TV dinner I have ever eaten in my life. 

By the time I was finished with my meal, the GPS now pegged my arrival at my final stop at five-thirty, a full half hour past their noted closing time. I called, said I was running late and asked if it would be acceptable if I showed up after hours. “Not a problem, we’ll take you.” The best thing I heard all day except for a Johnny Cash song I quite like. I drove the forty minutes to Haverhill, Massachusetts, happy as could be.

We unloaded in the back of the store, located along the Merrimack River. When we were done, I drove along the water and noticed the sun setting in my passenger side mirror. I love sunsets more than light alone, so I had no choice but to park the truck and watch it for a little while. I loved this one more than any I have observed in a while, mostly because I haven’t seen any in quite some time. We’ve had nothing but rain and low clouds for what seems like a few months, until this week.  Here is how it looked to me:

As I sat there and enjoyed the view, I came to an amazing realization. As the day progressed, trivial things sucked up time and threatened to turn a one-day trip into two. I thought that the universe was testing me with these conspiracies. I had once thought I was due for a day like this, but today was not so bad.

In the end, I have come to realize that the universe was really acting on my behalf all along. She knows I like sunsets, especially after such a drought. Things had to be as they were, so I could be right where I needed to be during the final light of the day. I appreciated that, even after all the struggles of the day. I always believed that every day is a good day if you give it permission to be so. I’m not sure if I remembered that mantra this morning, but I won’t forget it when I wake up tomorrow.