Reporting from the TN/GA border I75 heading to Muncie IN with a load of slinkies. It’s Halloween – big deal! – 45 degrees, dark and raining. Yesterday it was 85 sunny and beautiful in Clearwater FL.
Before I start this post, I just want to apologize to anyone that is offended by the photo I’m using here. I know it is risky to some to show more “behind” than most of the Fortune 500 are comfortable with or perhaps one could infer something “kinky” in the fact that the worker is blocking the number “7” with his crotch. Does the hard hat meet with corporate OSHA requirements? I hope so. He’s not wearing gloves, which might be a problem for your safety department. I’m sure that no matter how innocent I believe the picture is appropriate to the post, someone will be bothered by it. So, again, I apologize to anyone who feels uncomfortable having to look at it. Maybe using just a photo of a typical “vanilla” clock – like you would buy a Wal-Mart - would have been better.
With that behind us, tonight is the time, once again, to change the damn time, unless you are in Arizona or a few other places that have come to their senses. Fall behind and Spring forward. As November is a few hours away, before you go to sleep, set your clocks back one hour. And so begins what I consider the worst time of the year. The weather is turning colder and will only get worse with the coming of ice, snow and sub zero temperatures. The days will be shorter and we will have less daylight to drive in. There is nothing I hate more than having to find a shipper/consignee in the dark. Most of the places I go to are bad enough in the daylight that having to cope with their lack of lighted signs and roads - and dark tight spaces - makes my job miserable.
I always recall an incident that happened to me in the dark a few years ago. I was delivering to a trailer manufacturing facility. I arrived there late at night. The weather was extremely cold, with high winds and heavy rain. I slept next to the guard shack. At 4:30 AM there was a knock. “You can go in now" said the guard. I had been asleep about three hours. I was supposed to unload at 8 AM. I do what drivers do when someone knocks unexpectedly and they have to pull in somewhere to load or unload. I throw something on and jump in the left seat. The rain was coming down much worse than when I first got there.
I got out of the truck and went inside the guard shack. The guard looked about 80 years old. I asked “where do they want me?” He said, “go to the end of the gate and turn right – then go straight down till the end of the building and make another right and pull in.” Got it. I got back in the truck and started driving down to the end of the gate. There were little or no lights. Some went on and off every few minutes. The plant was not yet open.
End of the gate. Right turn. It’s dark. Water everywhere. I head straight down following the directions to the letter. The rain, believe it or not, was getting worse. The wind was really kicking up big time. I’m proceeding very slowly. I can see lights at the end of the building where I was told to make another right and pull in. This is a big place. Must be 50 or so dock doors on this side.
Slowly. Slowly. HOLY SHIT! What the? Me and the entire truck are going down fast on an angle – in WATER! OMG. I’m completely disoriented. Water is coming in the doors. A million things are racing through my mind. BRAKES! BRAKES! I almost rip out the yellow and red brake handles and I jam the brake pedal down. I’m not stopping! The water is rushing in. I’ve got 48,000 lbs. of iron forcing me down in the water. It’s like I drove straight into a lake.
I’m going to drown in freak’n Iowa. The engine is still running. The truck lights are still on. I felt like I was on the Titanic. I don’t know why, but I rolled down the window. The water was 1/2 up the door. But I’m at an angle. The nose of the truck is almost completely submerged. I stop! I say to myself, I’ve got to get the hell out of the truck. I force the door open, water rushes in and I get out and manage to get on the step. Then like a moron I decide to climb down off the step and I go underwater. Freezing water.
Now I am completed submerged. It is dark, frigid and I’m completely clothed and trying not to drown. All I can remember is the truck lights on the engine still running. I swim to my right and then back toward the trailer. There seems to be no bottom. I grab hold of the trailer and worm my way up toward the rear. Finally I feel something under my feet. It is very soft and sandy. I’m afraid to put my feet down. I keep working my way along the trailer. The surface under my feet is getting harder. I’m finally out of the water.
I’m sitting on the ground wet and freezing. I’m looking at the truck. What am I supposed to do now? Turn off the engine? What if it doesn’t start again. What about the lights? I go back in the water
and swim toward the cab. I reach up and shut off the engine. I can’t reach the lights. I get back on land and try to find help.
As you can imagine, there’s a hell of a lot more to this story. But, every year when the time changes I think of this incident. And my only thought is that I can’t wait until Spring forward, when, to me, everything is “normal” again.
