Sometimes you just gotta

I'm sitting in the darkness, in an abandoned warehouse's parking lot.

I don't like doing this. It's a good way to get in trouble. And even when you're fairly sure nobody's going to mind, it still doesn't feel right. At least not for me.

But I was told this particular empty lot was the unofficial hidey-hole for trucks that can't make it out of town to a real truck stop. I've seen a few places like that in other towns. The police know it's done, and why; so as long as the owners don't raise a fuss they don't look too closely. At least as long as nobody abuses the privilege.

Hope I heard right. I needed it this time. Badly

Examining the omens
I got up this morning and turned the satcom on. After its usual few minutes, it came back with my email list. With no new messages.

Which meant no load info.

So I sent my dispatcher a message. And shortly got a reply: Call in for a verbal.

The need for a verbal confirmation usually means the load is hot--either high-value or you-better-get-it-there-QUICK. If not both. The perfect way to begin the day.

Oh, well. I called in, and the dispatcher made sure I could get there. This time the heat was high-value. The load was 120 miles away, but the time constraints weren't bad at all. So I jumped through the virtual-paperwork hoops and started on my merry way. In the process, I switched to navigation mode, to make sure I had the distance right.

The map screen was blank.

My GPS had fouled up again. It wasn't working. At all.

Time for the modern equivalent of slapping the cabinet. I pushed the proper buttons. The computer said it was shutting down.

It didn't.

That should have been a hint...

Communication is the key
Oh, well. The time constraints weren't bad, but sitting here wrestling with the computer still wasn't a good idea. And I knew where I was going--the directions were pretty straightforward. So, off we go.

I got to the shipper in plenty of time, and checked in with the gate guard. He asked what I was doing there.

I didn't have a pickup number, so I went back to the truck and sent a message in asking for one. But after a few minutes, a niggling suspicion crept into my mind. I had told the computer to shut down, more than two hours ago. And it hadn't. What else hadn't it done?

Virtually slapping the thing hadn't worked. Time to virtually drop-kick it.

I wormed into a back corner of the truck and physically unplugged the computer.* Then I took a quick walk across the parking lot to the nearest, um, facility. Got back, plugged the computer back in, sent the message again. And picked up the phone, just to be sure.

My dispatcher said, "What are you doing there?"

Turned out the load had been cancelled.

About the time he said that, the computer beeped. Informing me that I had an email. Telling me the load had been cancelled.

So if I'd kindly drive another 120 miles, the dispatcher said, there'd be a load ready when I got there. Oh, and while I was there, would I mind bringing the shipper a few more trailers? A customer nearby had a few to spare...

As long as we understand each other.
So I apologized to the nice people and drove and drove. Got to the shipper, dropped my empty (had to sweep it out--the shipper is a neat freak), and made my way to the other place.

"You ain't taking none of our empties!" the other people said.

They said it much more politely, of course. The gate guards hadn't made the decision any more than I had. But there it was...

So I found a parking place (running bobtail gives you a few more options) and called my dispatcher. Arguing with the customer's middle management isn't part of the job description. I'd let my people talk to their people.

An hour and a half later, I'd made a fair start on catching up with my reading. But I hadn't heard anything. So I called my dispatcher again. He hadn't heard anything either. We made sympathetic griping noises at each other and I went back to my reading. And shortly after that, I got a satcom message, telling me EXACTLY which trailers to go get.

Round and round the mulberry bush
So I went back in. The security people cheerfully let me through--their people had talked to them, too And I made a quick sweep of the parking lot, looking for the two trailers I'd been told to get.

Two hours later I hadn't found either of them.

I'd driven through every parking lot on their grounds at least twice--including the sections where no outside company's trailers were supposed to be. Nothing. Not just neither of my trailers. None of our company's trailers. At all.

There was only one more place to look. Along one fence line was a long double line of trailers. As in double-parked. No way to tell what was in that back row from the main lot. And if I found either of them, I'd have to get a yard dog to move the trailer in front before I could get it. But I'd run out of other places to look. So I got out and started worming between the rows on foot.

I still couldn't find one of them. But I finally found the other.

There was a large, brightly-colored tag hanging from an air-line connector.

NOT ROADWORTHY, it said.

No kidding,, I thought.

Did I say the tag was hanging from an air-line connector? I should have said THE air-line connector. The other one had been broken off at the fitting. The front wall of the trailer behind that fitting had a dent in it, two inches deep and about three or four feet high. In the middle of the dent was a four-inch gash in the metal.

It looked as if someone had backed the corner of another trailer into it. Hard. Couldn't have been the customer, of course. I mean, just because it was impossible to move with that particular fitting missing. And nothing could have hit there as long as it was hooked to a truck. And it was tucked into an obscure corner of the yard. With other trailers lined up in front of it. Where it was almost impossible to find. Some people have nasty, suspicious minds...

By now it was night.
The dispatcher I'd been talking to all day had certainly gone home by now. So I called in and told my night dispatcher what was going on. She said "Don't waste any more time on it.** Just go get your load."

So I Went back to the shipper and found out which trailer I was supposed to take. Hooked up, brought it around to the gate, and pulled onto the scale. This shipper has its own scales, which is a good thing. If you've got a weight problem, it's always nice to find it in a place where you DON'T have to turn around and drive ten or twenty miles back to get it fixed.

Like this time.

The load was both slightly overweight and VERY nose-heavy. No way to balance it. So I took it back to the warehouse, where they could pull a few pallets off and reshuffle the rest. Then it was back to the gate to rescale.

Legal this time. Quiet sigh of relief.

By now, I had maybe half an hour of legal clock time. The nearest truck stop was at least that far away. And, given that it was the only one for a hundred miles or so, I figured its parking lot almost had to be full by now.

At that point some nice person mentioned this parking lot. Said I wouldn't get arrested for parking there, but he could get fired for telling me about it.

Which means, of course, that nobody told me anything.

So here I am, sitting in the dark watching the traffic go obliviously by a hundred feet in front of me. And making up stories.

Guess I'll stop now.

G'nite.
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*I'm not supposed to know how to do that, of course. So I must have imagined doing it...

**Well, all right--the language might have been a little stronger than that...