Early morning

Backed up to a dock in the early morning hours, watching the morning shift filter in from the parking lot in front of me. It's light enough for that now--as opposed to when I slipped in. I got here a good hour or so too early--I just now felt the truck vibrate, telling me they're opening the dock door and preparing to unload me. Better that than arriving on time, though--that would have involved sharing the city streets with a whole lot of other people who were also getting to work "on time." Tolerable in a car, but in one of these barges...

Before I had to do it, I never thought just how much the sheer SIZE of these trucks affects the way you drive. I've touched on that before, of course--the way you take up EVERYBODY's lane turning right at an intersection, the reason you don't dare be too polite to merging traffic, and so on. But the sheer terror that comes with a trip up Main Street in Smallville, with parked cars three inches from your trailer on the right and oncoming traffic the same distance away on your left--and are those power lines really high enough? Oh, and you'd better spot that cross street in time--you sure aren't going to back up if you miss it. Assuming you can turn at all--it's not like YOU wrote these directions...

So when I can I come in REAL early in the morning. It's a bit less terrifying when the streets aren't full.

(Now the truck is bouncing. If this were Star Trek I'd be pretending to fall out of my chair for dramatic emphasis. Good. The forklift is at work...)