My Birthday

It started at what I thought was 3:15 am. Got up, took a shower, got out, petted my doggies, looked at the clock. It was 3:00 am.  What? Okay, the alarm for 3:15 am was still green, meaning it would have gone off. I must have accidentally set another alarm?  I dunno, but I took my pants off, set the alarm for 3:35 and went back to bed. The reason I did that is because I didn't get a wink of sleep. Well a couple of hours worth, which basically equals nothing.  I have no idea. I was awakened by the dogs growling at something, they stopped and then I tried to get back to sleep.

It never happened.  I got out of bed at 3:35 am, petted my doggies again, then got out the door.  Got the truck at the yard, went to the plant.  Went through the entire process of getting in there, getting weighed, going to the rack.  This place is huge and everything has a process.  Then I had to wait for the dude to come out to the rack. He has me position the truck to where he wants it. He got busy, I started putting on all that gear I have to put on.  Fire proof clothing, steel toed boots, gloves, eye protection and a hard hat replete with a face shield and ear muffs.

I go to put the key into the box. You can't even leave the key in your truck, obviously they have had some braniac truck drivers in there doing stupid things. Such as taking off when the hoses are still attached to the truck.  Hey bro, we have a problem here.  He goes to show me the lever for an emergency valve that has to be pulled out to fill the truck. The cable is broken. 

I thought, I got up at before 3:00 am to get my ass over to the yard and get everything done to find out this trailer is broken? And this is my birthday?  lol  I call my manager: please drop it at National. A place that fixes trucks.  Take it to National.  Don't leave it there, she calls me back - after I had already dropped the trailer - bring it back to the yard.  I'm feeling like HELL at this point. My head aching from not getting enough sleep and all this s*** going on.  Back to the yard.  Text the manager: these are the trailers here.  Oh, yes, LE001.  Take that one.  Unhook, rehook, more paperwork, back to the plant, go through the entire process again.  Get to the drivers shack and yes, I passed out in the chair for a while. 

That was actually helpful, but not nearly enough to recover almost an entire's night's worth of sleep - poof, gone into the thin blue air.  I get out of there, drive down the road for 90 miles, and take my 30 minute break in Nacogdoches. An ancient truck stop, perfect place, I didn't need fuel. Literally passed out again, only to wake up 20 minutes later.  Went inside and got breakfast/lunch. Got back on the road.  Drove for 6 hours straight but i was fighting sleep.  I ended up pulling over into a parking lot right off the side of the highway and passing out yet again for 15 minutes.  That was enough to get me down here - about 55 miles away from the drop point.  I didn't have enough hours to make it down there legally and my company not a fan of going over hours. 

They put me up in a hotel for the night. I'm still in a rental truck so they would have had to done that. But, on my birthday and out here alone, I would have paid for it myself if they weren't required to do so.  Holiday Inn Express. Nice enough, A bit too "modern" for me in the furnishings and paint style, but, it's clean, has  a very wonderful looking queen bed and a 48inch flat screen TV with, get this, almost ALL of the movies channels on Direct TV!

Well, that's about it.  I'm on my second movie.  But I am going to bed soon. I hope to get some serious sleep tonight. That would be a nice Birthday gift!