The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Trucking

Here is the rest of the story of last week in the truck. It contains the good the bad and the ugly and we had all three.

1. (bad) The first thing was when we waited for our friends truck to get done in the shop last Tuesday. We won't say where but it's like the first truck stop in the valley in TX. Two brake chambers and a mudflap took almost all day to fix and they had the parts to start with!! The mudflap wasn't even torn off. For you non truck drivers this is like having your oil changed and maybe the tires replaced and balanced. NOT supposed to take forever but it took a great portion of the afternoon and some of the morning.

2. (bad good) The next thing was when the wheel came off of the truck. You say how could this be good but I'm just going on how people treated us which was excellent. Once again if you need a super mechanic around Prescott Arkansas I can tell you where to go (email tcscarlet at yahoo dot com). These people went out of their way to help us. Also I want to thank our friends that were with us John and Cindy and also Allan who stopped by with his pickup for their help and kindness.

3. (bad good) The next thing was driving through Illinois in the blizzard and then having to fix the filler tube on the truck in a parking lot. My husband did wonderfully and I was so proud he could fix it, it would have been a bad job under any circumstances but in blowing wind and snow@ 4 am I was amazed he got it done. Also the lady @ the fuel stop (exit 283 on I 57) was just as nice as she could be. the parking lot was full of trucks and truckdrivers, I KNOW some were awake but did anyone ask if they could help? Nope. They can run to open doors for me but they can't come hold a flashlight in a blizzard? (bad) Seriously though I'm not sure if my husband would have helped another guy in those circumstances but if his wife was obviously shaking as if pooping a peach seed (my husbands quote cleaned up)and holding the flashlight, in his defense he did try to get me to get back in the truck but I try to help as much as possible. I did buy a stocking cap after that. Stupid me forgot my mufflers and hat @ home.

4. (ugly) We FINALLY get to where we are going to deliver. SUPPOSEDLY the broker had changed the appointment to Tuesday. It's Friday and we had had a tire and wheel fall off, driven through a blizzard (saw an empty bus skidded off beside the road with all of it's lights on facing the wrong way and the door open...... SPOOKY), and fixed the truck in said blizzard and then my husband was told we were going to have to sit there 5 days because they were busy? I told my husband if I went to see the receiver I would ask him if his mama knew what a waste of valuable human skin he was. LUCKILY our friends knew one of the guys working on the dock (great guy) who told the receiver they weren't busy. They weren't busy in the first place (we were the only trucks @ that dock) but some people REALLY get off on making others lives miserable.

5.(bad bad) So we go to Springfield Illinois the Pilot on exit 100. Fuel card won't go through, it's not like it didn't have money on it or we hadn't bought fuel @ a Pilot before with it. They wouldn't even RUN the card through for my husband till I went in and immediately asked for the manager in my polite but don't cross me voice. We could have used cash but if you knew my husband you would know why he wouldn't even let me refill my thermos there after that incident. Our friend said they just didn't run the fuel card through right because it makes NO sense one Pilot could take it and not another? So we go to another truck stop, fuel up, it's COLD now and the wind is still blowing but it quit snowing. We've driven on some VERY slick roads. We are almost to our pickup point and...... the truck won't run right? It's been since we fueled up, we have additive in the fuel to stop it from gelling?? Water in the fuel filter, don't know if it came from the last fuel we got but......

6. (ugly good) We get to where we are supposed to pick up, Beardstown IL. My husband has a spare fuel filter and he is pretty sure that's what it was. I asked him why he didn't just change it and the single digit temp has something to do with it (I think he called me nuts right then and said something about freezing his tush off). So we are bob-tailing to town and a TransX driver is @ the stop sign. (I LOVE Canadians by the way but the last two TransX drivers we've ran into have been bad Canadian representatives). The TransX driver is bob-tailing too. We sit there and sit there and sit there, we sat 5 minutes. There is traffic on the road but our truck isn't running exactly right and the driver in front passes up several chances to pull out on the road. So we go around, there is plenty of room and when we pull out he could have actually followed. He gets irate and starts gesturing and yelling, I believe he said he WAS going to go, and I said when? smiled and waved. LOL Anyway we go to Ace Hardware in Beardstown and they were VERY helpful! WONDERFUL people, new fuel filter on it and truck purrs like a kitten.

7. (ugly good bad) So we are within rock throwing distance of the Mexican border now. We have to drop our trailer into a yard that has chugholes 2 ft deep in it and I"m not kidding. There are usually 10+ trucks here (30+ this morning) and we are supposed to go in in the order we got here....TransX again in front of us. Don't think it's the one from Beardstown but he let ANOTHER TransX in front of him. No big deal but my husband said something on the cb. The TransX driver came back on and said everyone always butted in front of him down here so he was butting in this time, real nice attitude, several people had the same attitude last week. So I know who TransX is now and I will stay way away from them. BUT the girl in the office had breakfast tacos for sale, we had a nice conversation about my Aeropostale shoes, that was the good. Then the foam cereal bowl broke on my husband and cereal, milk, and sugar went everywhere while I was writing this. I wanted to clean today but hadn't planned on doing it in the middle of writing this.

So this has been my week. I won't forget it for awhile. I'm just glad we are where it's warm now and we are alive and fine.