uh, hello?

I'm in Texas, and Mexico is just down the road a piece. I hope to have a load headed back east tomorrow.

My mother-in-law was distressed when he learned where I was. She'd been watching news stories about someone who'd decided to jet-ski on the wrong body of water, and been mistaken for law enforcement by some drug lord's overly-watchful minion.

I told her not to worry. I wouldn't be likely to die in quite so embarrassing a fashion.

Losing the terminal was embarrassing enough.

After two days of hard driving, I arrived at the customer's warehouse and parked. I'd just started to relax and maybe nap a bit (always a good idea) when I got a message from my dispatcher, asking if I'd had my trailer inspected.

Huh?

Oh, yeah.

I'm on the Mexican border, and judging by where I'm delivering this trailer, it'll be going on south without me. Which means it has to be inspected, so any questions of its safety and/or condition are settled beforehand. I should have taken the trailer to our terminal to be checked out before I came here.

So I look up the address of the local terminal on my satcom. And sure enough, there it is. Not terribly far off. I can even get the GPS to guide me there.

Which means I only missed the turnoff twice. Well we've discussed this GPS before...

Finally, though, I pulled into a sort-of familiar lot. I've been down here a couple of times, and I recognized the dusty gravel lot and the old trailer that passes for an office/lounge.

No Company sign.

There hadn't been one at the street, either. One reason I'd missed the turn.

And none of the trucks had a paint job to match mine.

Uh-oh.

The two Hispanic gentlemen in the office trailer were gentlemen indeed. One of them politely informed me that their company had bought this lot some time back. He didn't know where I was supposed to go now, but I was welcome to use their phone...

The other gentleman looked things up on the computer. This address was still in the phone directory, he said. But he himself knew where our new terminal was, and gave me careful directions.

Half an hour later, my trailer was being given a once-over at a terminal much larger and better set-up than our old one. An approving piece of paper to take back to the customer, and I was off. An hour or two later I was back to sample the pleasures of the new digs.

Nicely enough appointed. Not new. I suppose the Company found a place the economy had cast adrift. No complaints—I'll probably have to overnight here, and the facilities are certainly an improvement on the gravel lot and the trailer.

Be nice if they had a working coke machine, though...