Jacksonville, FL - 6/16/09

By the time I got to Cherokee last night, all I wanted to do was go to bed. So I did. Here's why:

I was scheduled to deliver on the westside of Atlanta at 8am Monday. That's not too early, but with traffic, I figured I'd try to leave around 6am and, if I was lucky, get there a little early. So, like a good little truck driver, I stepped outside to do my pre-trip inspection. A little while later I was all finished and it was time to hop in and get on the road. Only, my door won't open. Oh. Crap.

It was now just before 6am, the truck was locked, my keys were inside, and I was up the creek. The only thing I had was my iPhone, which I had clipped to my belt before getting out of the truck - as if I couldn't love this phone anymore. Alright, time to call a locksmith. After pulling up a list of local locksmiths on my phone, I called the first 24 hr one listed...and got an answering machine. Okay, on to number two. And the second answering machine. Do these people know what 24/7 means? Well, the third time was a charm - I got a real person on the line. The technician, as he referred to himself, showed up about an hour after he said he would. By that time, it had already become clear an 8am delivery was not going to happen, so I had alerted my dispatcher. According to the technician, this was the first big truck he had worked on - and it was evident: three phone consultations with other locksmiths and one hour later, my door was unlocked.

So remember kids, if you lose your wallet and think things can't get worse, Murphy hates you and things will get worse. You'll end up locked out of your vehicle...with your no-wallet-having self.

So that was yesterday's adventure. I ended up making the delivery and picking up a load to Cherokee. I dropped the trailer in Cherokee, parked in front of my trailer that was being loaded in the dock, and went to bed.

Today was much smoother. A long but relatively painless ride from Cherokee to Jacksonville today. My routing to Miami had me taking a bunch of toll roads, but since, as previously mentioned in an earlier post, my Sunpass is in Wisconsin and I don't want to deal with stopping to pay for tolls with my own cash, I'm taking an alternate route. It's a little longer drive, but I'm saving the company a chunk of change by avoiding the tolls. And did I mention I'm not a fan of using my own money to pay for tolls? Of course, the company reimburses me for such expenses, but that's a hassle and I'm simply not a fan of tolls or of lending my company money.

Tomorrow should be a relatively light 5-6 hour drive down to Miami. I'm supposed to deliver Thursday morning and then I'm hoping for a load back to Georgia, but I'm certainly not going to hold my breath.