Fish traps

I was going to go for a walk this morning, but it kind of got wet.

"Kind of" is the really annoying part.  It's raining--just enough of a mist to make a long walk unpleasant, but not enough to be worth putting anything waterproof on.  If I were going somewhere I wouldn't mind--I actually like walking in this kind of thing.  But not two or three miles just for exercise. I could use the exercise, but hey...

I've been at this truck stop, on and off, for over a week now.  The Company has some customers that expect a stable of drivers to carry just their loads--dedicated accounts, they're called.  And the Christmas holiday is stretching some of those stables a bit.  So I've become a Dedicated Driver for a month.  Which means parking here, near a huge warehouse, and hauling trailers to any of their stores within a 300-or-so-mile radius.  Reliable, but repetitive.  I haven't made up my mind whether I like it.

One thing about it, I spend a lot of time slipping into store docks in the wee hours.  The other night, I was near DC, earnestly following my directions, and sure enough, there was the store.  So I pulled in the front drive--and discovered it didn't go straight in.  Over the last week or so, I'd noticed that most of these stores had their service drive on the right side, so that's the way I turned.

Not this time.

I got to the end of the drive, looked left, and saw a curb with a car parked in front of it.  Then I got out and strolled along the drive.  There were four different places where you could turn into the parking lot above me.  All four were sized for cars.  All four were flanked with shopping cart racks, strategically placed for maximum property damage if I were foolish enough to try slipping in.

Below me was another parking lot.  Two entrances were much like the four above (but with trees instead of shopping-cart racks).  I might could get through the third, if I was careful.  And there'd be enough room to turn around once I got in there.

All I'd have to do is back up a couple of hundred feet.

Backing up on a street is outright illegal.  Technically, this was a driveway, so I suppose I might not get arrested--but the laws are there because backing one of these things is a major undertaking.  If nothing else, you're never sure when someone will casually pull up behind you, stop, and patiently wait for you to run over them.

There is a whole class of fish traps, in all sizes and made of all kinds of materials (all the way back to the Stone Age, made of sticks stuck in the mud) that work on the same principle:  guide the fish down a channel until he reaches a point he can't get out of without backing up.  A lot of fish have serious trouble swimming backwards.  I'd never thought I'd sympathise so thoroughly with a fish.

Fortunately, this was one of the times that I'd gotten to a store at a reasonable hour.  It was open.  I found an assistant manager who had a few minutes.  He watched the traffic while I backed.  And that one entrance was big enough and angled right.  Barely.  Five minutes later I was around back looking for a dock door.  I felt much better.

Then I swapped trailers and swam home.

p.s.
Sorry bout the drought.  Now that I have to sit around a little more, I'll try to get a few of the posts I've got sitting on the phone into readable form.