i A Time and a Place...: It Wouldn't a Happened...

Friday, November 14, 2008

It Wouldn't a Happened...


Ever since Donna Lee said,"I Do," the last time, things have been happening to her. Wanna hear one? OK, here goes

I bought a truck and signed on with Bekins Van Lines. I was "California Bedbug" and Donna Lee was," Tag Axle,." I ran alone sometimes but sometimes I got horny..'oops'-er..uh..lonely, and sent for Donna Lee to ride with me for a while.

This time I picked her up at the Harrisburg, Pa airport and we headed out to Minneapolis, Minnesota.(Where she'd never been before)

I had picked up a small machine, like a large copier or something of that nature, that weighed about fifty or sixty pounds. It was going to an office in a large building downtown.

When I got to the building which was about ten stories high, I double (or fiple, being in a truck) parked across the street from the building and walked across to the office and told the lady receptionist I had freight for her and axed if I should carry it across the street to the office.
She said not to, there was a loading dock beneath the building and I could pull down there and set it off on the dock. I axed her if it was big enough to accommodate my truck and she assured me big trucks always pulled down there to load and unload. OK, I said.

The door leading down to the dock was right across the street so all I needed to do was back up about twenty feet and cut across the street and pull into it. It did, indeed, appear to be plenty big, wide enough and high enough for my Jimmy Cab over three axle tractor and forty foot trailer. So off we went. Tra-la-la...

I pulled the truck into the driveway which gradually curved to the right as it descended. I could see about fifteen feet ahead of the truck and was moving right along.

"Oh, shit!" I heard someone say. It was Donna Lee. I immediately applied the brakes and axed her what was wrong. She pointed to a sign above the driveway and I reiterated,"Oh shit!"-actually a couple of times with a couple more expletives added for flavor.
Hanging from the ceiling was a sign that read,"No Vehicles Over 38 Feet Allowed."

Well, oh dear, I thought to my self. (among other things) My tractor was fourteen feet long and the trailer was forty feet long. ..'uuum..uuh..les'see..-oh, yeah,-fifty four feet is more than thirty eight feet.'duh'

I stopped and took a look and immediately determined I could not go back. I would have to back around a curve and into a busy street. I had to go on. So I did.

When we reached the loading area, I could see there was a lot of room there. The biggest problem was, the area around the loading dock was also a parking area for employees. Here we were, for best or worst.

I got out of the truck and walked to the dock where a man was standing, watching and grinning.

"Howdy," he said and I 'howdyed' him back. He mentioned I had a problem and I agreed. Now we had to figure out what to do so I could turn around to pull out.

I showed him the freight that was for here and his eyes looked a question at me as to why I hadn't just carried it across the street instead of pulling my truck down here. I silently (almost) explained to him,-the lady upstairs said to pull down here.
'Oh, Yeah,' he all but said.

He got on the phone to try to find some people who could come down and move their cars to give me more room. A few came down but I could see there wasn't much chance I'd ever get the room I needed to safely turn around.

I started pulling ahead and backing around, picking up a few feet at a time, until I was locked into my last possible position. The tractor was sort of pointed toward the out ramp but my trailer was butted up against his dock.

This was it. I axed him if Donna Lee and I could fill out work applications since we would never get out from under this building. He chuckled a negative and I grinned as weakly as I could.

All this time, Donna Lee was biting her tongue, her cheek and her lip, trying to keep quiet, feeling the last thing I needed was advice from her. I finally axed her, mainly to be polite and include her in, what we should do? She chuckled and said,"Let's just get in and pull out."

Well, I shook my head and looked at the dock man and at my trailer (it was a Kentucky, solid as a granite rock) and he wondered what would happen if we did, indeed, pull ahead. I pointed out to him that the corner of my trailer was jammed against the right corner of his dock. He wondered what would happen if I pulled out anyway; would it hurt the trailer? I told him it would not hurt the trailer but it would take the concrete corner off his loading dock. He axed how much it would take and I looked it over and opined it would take about a ten inch chunk all the way to the floor, leaving a semi-rounded corner instead of a square corner. He grinned and said,"Go for it!"

I axed him if he was serious and he said he was so I did just that.

When I eased forward, I felt the pressure on the trailer so I codded it a bit and heard a loud 'POP' and everything got easy. I looked in my mirror and saw the nice, smooth rounded corner of the dock and the man waving goodbye so I nodded in the mirror and never again looked back.

Now, if Donna Lee hadn't married me, she would never have been almost imprisoned under a ten story building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota and would never have been instrumental in redesigning a loading dock twenty feet underground.

It just wouldn't a happened!

Later...

10 Comments:

Blogger Malinda777 said...

That's a funny story :) We own a big rig truck & trailer repair garage :)

I used to live in Snyder, TX. I was raised in Colorado City :)

A belated happy birthday to the Missus :)

11:45 PM  
Blogger Ca... said...

What a bunch of coincidences! My bro-in-laws 'second job' to earn a couple of bucks was to go to Big Spring, in Howard, a wet county, and buy whiskey to re-sell to his friends and co-workers in Snyder, in Scurry, a dry county.
I was 14 (I lied about my age-said I was 16)and for a couple of weeks, I hired on with an ice company to deliver ice to homes in the colored section of Snyder. 25 pounds of ice was 35 cents. That was an education and an adventure!

4:46 AM  
Blogger Ca... said...

Oh, thanks for the 'Happy Birthday' to Donna!

4:47 AM  
Blogger Malinda777 said...

That's a crack up :) When I was coming up we STILL went to Big Springs for booze...usually to Sweetwater, a difference of about 10 miles but in opposite directions.

C-City is now wet...Big Springs is still wet...Scurry Co. still dry I think.

The whole place has withered up to nothin though. I haven't been home in about 3 years...but last time there it made me really sad...nothin left exceptin druggers and low lifes... It was quite the little town when I grew up there though :)

If your truck ever lands you in the Reno/Sparks area...come by and say hey :)

5:43 AM  
Blogger Ca... said...

It's a date! It'll have to be vacation time, though; we're retired. Did you check us out on You Tube? JC and DonnaLee

10:00 AM  
Blogger tweetey30 said...

Thanks to Donna Lee.. You helped redo a loading dock and more or less helped them realize they need to be rounded instead of square for those big rigs...

1:02 PM  
Blogger J C said...

Donna Lee says thanks, Tweety, but she'll keep the job she has!'chuckle
(Giving me orders)

7:06 PM  
Blogger Ca... said...

'oops'... me, too.

7:07 PM  
Blogger tweetey30 said...

Happy Thanksgiving CA and Donna Lee... Hope you have a wonderful Holiday..

1:13 PM  
Blogger Lucy Stern said...

I wonder what would have happened if more then just a corner had come off? I don't think I could handle a big rig.....Do you have a CB radio or are you a "ham" operator? I fall under the KE5KIO call.

Happy Thanksgiving to the both of you.

8:30 AM  

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