Wednesday - evening

Where do I start with this nonsense?  Yesterday morning.  I do a pre-trip inspection, including climbing up the ladder to ensure the loading plant hasn't closed the valve to allow both air and water into the tank.  Air pressure pushes the glue out, the tank will not unload gravity feed for the line goes up a 20 plus foot wall to overhead-dump into the giant storage tanks.  

Anyway, I drive straight to Gurdon, no stops (usually do now, I was stopping at a welcome center rest area for free coffee in Arkansas but I have since ditched that to just get up there and get this over with).  I pull up on the scales, get out of the truck, walk back to the scale house, open the window - they want you to do this instead of them - and say hello to everyone inside.  I then glance around for unknown reasons as the scale master is handing me back my BOL and was absolutely shocked to see both wheels/tires and brake drum gone on the driver's side rear trailer axle. 

I don't mean just the tires, I mean the wheels the tires are mounted on.  WTH? The scale master is looking at it in bewilderment as well.  

Let me preface this.  It was raining when I got up yesterday - Tuesday -  but it had been raining long before that.  

These wheels flew off, where?  Visibility was poor, very bad and looking into the sideview mirrors? You saw nothing but road spray.  Not to mention the wheels that came off were on the rear axle. You couple extreme road spray blocking your view plus rear wheels and you can't see anything going on back there. It rained constantly and quite heavy.  

I just stood there looking at it for a few seconds before coming to the quick conclusion that whatever is going to happen, I need to unload the trailer first.  And it was a very long ordeal.

After draining the tanker and going back to the scales to get empty weight, I sat on the side of the driveway outside of the plant for a long time. It took my company forever to decide what to do and then to actually act on it. I disagreed with their intended  line of action, but it's their truck and their company.  They wanted to chain up the axle on that side of the trailer and have me drive to Love's. 

I have no problem driving it with a chained up axle on an empty trailer, it's actually legal.  I've read about it in the past.  As long as the weight of the trailer doesn't go over the allowable weight for the tires, we are good.  But why go to Love's? Why not just drive it to the shop and let them deal with it?  I asked the shop supervisor that. Oh noooo, we don't want you driving it that far with a chained up axle.  

Why?  If I can drive it to Love's, what's the difference?  It's just too far to do that.  I caved quickly, no sense arguing with them, but I knew I was in for a long ordeal if taking it to Love's.  And that it was. It was 5 hours before they decided what to do and how to get out there to chain it up - Love's wouldn't do it.  5 HOURS.  It wasn't that this place was 100 miles away, it was my management taking their sweet old time deciding what to do.  This place was in town 2 miles away!

I knew after inspecting the damage that either Love's couldn't do it or it would take until next century to get it done. It was the latter.  My company called Love's in advance, but that didn't matter. I would have to wait 2 hours before they could do anything and even then, they weren't sure if they could do the job. My company insisted on having Love's do it for Love's is the screwup here. It was plainly obvious that they had either not torqued down the lugnuts or they had replaced the lugnuts with the wrong size, either way, those wheels were doomed.   

It wasn't 2 hours, Ohhhh noooo. It was just short of 6 hours before they got to it. It was almost 1 am when they finished the repair and I was dying.  Exhausted.  No entrance to your truck, they make you wait on these metal chairs that are abominations when it comes to physical comfort.  And I was faced with having to find a place to park when I got the truck out of there.  It was pouring rain - it literally rained all day long yesterday and has been raining since then.   

It gets better.  I go to bed at 1 am, I just parked in a "creative parking space" in front of the shop and didn't care, they certainly didn't care to make me wait that long. I was out of hours, I had to stay the night, but I had clocked off and in off-duty mode once I got to the shop, I knew I wouldn't have enough hours to drive home after they fixed it and there was quite a bit of hesitancy to whether they would even be able to.  

I got up at 5:45 am.  And it was not a good sleep.  I forced my ass out of bed, got moving and got out of there. I drove 70 miles before stopping for a cup of coffee.  I got just outside of my town and realized if I went home, as I planned to do to take a shower and get some clean clothes on - I would end up going to bed, I was not happy and not rested.  So I just kept on driving clear down to Nacogdoches for the trailer washout and then to Lufkin for the loading. Neither of which was particularly fast, especially Lufkin where it was almost 2 hours before they even started loading my tanker.  

I don't know how to convey the hellishness of having wheels falling off your trailer, endless rain, getting soaking wet unloading the trailer, dealing with a company that can't make up it's mind what to do, being accused of somehow being at fault for trailer WHEELS coming off the trailer.  Tires? Maybe, the entire wheels and tires? No, no, no.  Not from my company, but from Love's employees trying to "stand up for their company".  I quickly shut them down and they quickly conceded. I'm not new to trucks and I did truck mechanics for 6 years. Wheels do not simply fall off because a driver did that. No, no and NO.

I'm home and alone. Family left for not terribly far from where I deliver glue to. Death in the family, they took the kids out of school, took time off of work and they are gone until sometime on Saturday.  

I probably left a lot out of that story, I did not want to revisit all of that. Not in the mood.  

The main driveway is in horrible shape. It's drainage issue and I will have to deal with it after I somehow get the driveway fixed.  I have a plan, but its useless without dealing with the driveway first, including cutting out a channel for the water to drain into and then installing a large pipe under the driveway to drain it all out to the other side.  

It's an issue that is pressing on me and I can't get an answer from the contractor. He'll come out when he wants to.  Or he won't come out. I dunno.  

I work tomorrow and then off Friday and Saturday (unwanted, actually, I need the work atm) and then loading on Sunday, deliver on Monday and repeat for Tuesday and Wednesday.  Why am I loading on Sunday?  The dispatcher asked me, she was sounding pretty desperate about it, I don't know why she's got me off Friday and Saturday?  

And that's it. There is more. I don't feel like writing any more. I don't feel like doing anything. I think I'll put on a movie, watch it and go to sleep.