When I was a kid, and I read that book, I thought that a day couldn't get any worse than that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. That was until yesterday. . .
After I put Mackenzie to bed, I left for the coast - alone. Erik couldn't come that evening. Oh well. I loaded up my ipod with podcasts to keep me company. The drive down there was fine. I took the Coquihalla because the forest fires were dumping smoke along the Hope/Princeton highway and visibility was low.
I got to the yard at about 1:45 am Friday morning. I had called earlier to ask if I could back up into the yard and stay there for the night. I was told that I could. All I had to do was back up off the road into the driveway, only the road had no shoulders and the driveway was as narrow as a toothpick. There was no way I was getting in there. What was I to do? I didn't know the area and had no idea where to park, so I turned on the flashers and every other light on the truck I could, and went to sleep in the right lane of the road. Reference this first picture.
I set my head on the pillow, knowing I was in for a restless night. Parking and sleeping in the middle of a road is not my idea of a restful sleep, but I didn't know what else to do. I left a message on Terry's voicemal, hoping he would turn his phone on early in the morning.
At 6:45am, he called me. I told him I wasn't getting into the yard. He said Trevor, another one of our drivers, was a couple of blocks away and could come help me out. Trevor doesn't turn his phone on untill 8:00am so, I tried sleeping again. I watched the morning news for a bit, and finally dozed off for half an hour.
At 8:00am, I walked to the house on the yard to see if I was really in the write place. I was. They offered me coffee, toast, poached eggs, and bacon. A nice start to a no good day. It was during this breakfast that the dad proceeded to comment on my inablility to not be able to get a 71 foot long truck and trailer into his yard. By his 'kind' comments, I knew he had no idea what trucks are and are not capable of.
They decided to take out some fence posts. Great, but the ones they wanted to take out were not going to help matters. But what do I know? He had me try again and finally he could see that it wasn't going to work. More fence posts had to come out. The only way it was going to work now was if I turned around and came straight in. So around the block I went. I came to a stop just before pulling in, giving the guys time to get rid of more fence posts. This is when a neighbor lady shows up to 'kindly' let us know that my truck pulled down her power lines and she was without power. Trevor was there by this and he explained that we run legal heights. If the power lines came down, it was because they were lower than 15 feet high. Not our problem. But now I am thinking the power company is going to come after me.
Trevor guided me in. If it wasn't for him, I would have had a real hard time making it in without clipping a culvert. I pulled through two gates, around a corner, then jacknifed back, yanking out two mudflaps cause I was spinning through sand. All this to put the trailer near a 40' shipping container that they wanted to fill.
We finally get unloading. I am tossing bales down, it goes ok. I think the guys only took 3 smoke brakes. Tempers weren't too hot, yet.
When they finally realized that the hay wasn't going to fit into the container, they decided they would clean out their barn, take out another fence, chop down some trees, and clear old wood - just so I could pull near the barn to unload the rest. The container only took 1/4 of my load. It took them an hour to get it setup again. I had them watch closely as I pulled in cause there was a lot of potential to catch a bumper on think brush and junk lying around. I nosed right up to a fence. The son thought he had enough of moving bales by this time and went into the house.
When we were ready to go, I started throwing bales off the front. Now remember that my load was leaning forward. I had to pick bales carefully so they wouldn't fall on the truck. I was gracefully lifting the third bale off the front when the whole front gave way. I went swimming in an avalanche of bales, all the way to the ground. No worries though, the bales broke my 13 foot fall. I was suddenly scared though that a bale would land on my head. Thankfully this did not happen. These bales weighed up to 50 pounds. The bales missed the truck, only hitting the headache rack - whew!
Back to work, only, tempers are rising along with the heat from the sun. Early on in the day, the father decided that everything that went wrong was my fault. At one point, I thought he was going to deck me - all because "these stupid drivers don't know how to get into a yard."
Now I am throwing bales off the truck, up into a loft, and these guys want them far back into the barn so everytime one falls short or lands in a different spot, I hear more kind words.
Bale 760 gets thrown into the barn at about 2:30pm. I clean off the trailer, start loading my tarps and corner boards on the deck, put the hay hooks away, and what, there is only one hay hook? Where did the other one go? The mom borrowed it to move bales and one got lost some where. Under a stack of bales no doubt. I didn't really want to tell Terry that we lost one of his hay hooks. The mom started looking around while the "kind" words the dad had for her flew more feriously than ever. I felt so sad for that lady cause she seemed very nice and all, but she had to put up with this jerk. She must have been a strong woman.
Anyhow, I go to getting the truck cleaned up and backed out and I'll be darned, the mom finds the hay hook in a pile of hay. I guess it wasn't as small as a needle so it could be found.
I'm almost out of the yard so I go to put the mudflaps back on. Would you know it, I broke Terry's rachet. But this is where the dad decided to have a heart. He gave me one of his. The sun shows up with a bunch of beers and suddenly everyone is happy again. I can tell you that I was shure happy to pull off that yard at 3:30pm. I fueled up in Abbotsford and grabbed some food. I headed home empty cause I ran out of time to load anything anyway. I caught up to Trevor at Sunday Summit, on the Hope/Princeton highway and we chatted in the 2-way all the way home which was great.
I was going to title this story: Chris and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day but in the end, it turned out ok cause I made it home to Angela safe and sound.
It may sound like a crazy story but my heart really ached for that family. I rarely meet such angry people. It takes a special woman to live with such an angry man. I think I will think about them for some time, and pray for them too. I don't know what their day to day lives are like, but at least yesterday, they had a brush with a Jesus lover. Maybe they needed that more than I needed the money. I'll never know.
1 comment:
Dude,
I'm glad you aren't dead or anything. Although I would have said something good at your funeral.
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