I never know what each week will hold for me. Most weeks it’s just basic deliveries. Nothing special.
Then there are weeks like last week that I’m glad don’t occur very often.
I went in Monday morning at seven o’clock, as instructed, to start out on schedule for my four deliveries in east Texas. Before I head out I have to conduct a pre-trip inspection of the tractor and trailer to make sure they’re both capable of traveling safely down the road.
Flat tires are one of those things that must be fixed before I can even leave the yard. Guess what I found on the trailer. Yeah, a flat tire.
My dispatcher doesn’t come in until eight o’clock. I called him. It went straight to voice mail. I texted him…nothing…until eight o’clock.
Over an hour later the tire guy shows up and fixes the trailer tire of the other driver’s rig parked behind mine.
At ten o’clock I’m finally rolling safely down the road. So much for being on schedule. It all got delivered even if it was a bit later than expected.
Tuesday I stayed home because orders were slow. My computer received some much needed updating that took all day. I got a lot of apartment cleaning done that was also way overdue.
Wednesday turned out to be the only ‘normal’ day as I drove to my first stop for Thursday’s deliveries.
When I left that store I headed north. That’s when a light came on that I didn’t want to see.
It’s the little red engine light on the dashboard that says stop on it. That one means the truck will stop very soon because something is terribly wrong with it.
Ten miles up the road I pulled into the only rest stop on that stretch of road and called the truck leasing company. They told me a mechanic told them he’d be there in nine minutes.
Forty five minutes later he finally arrived. He hooked his computer to my truck and ran an engine regeneration. That’s supposed to clean out enough of the gunk in the exhaust system to get me rolling safely down the road again. This time it didn’t.
It cleaned out enough to get me to the next city at least. After my next delivery I swap out my tractor for another one.
Even though I was three hours late I somehow got back on schedule by the end of the day. The only hitch in my giddy up was when I found a piece of bedding that was supposed to be dropped off at my first stop after I completed my third stop…one hundred miles away. OOPS
I completed my last three stops on Friday before I reswapped the tractors. By then my tractor was fixed. The only thing left was delivering that pesky piece that was supposed to be dropped off a day and a half ago.
I have a choice to make sometimes. I can laugh or I can swear. Since the roads from that first/last stop on this route are in rural Arkansas they’re all over the place because of geography. I don’t understand why the GPS device tells me to go down the next stretch of road for twenty five miles and that I should go straight.
For real?
I usually get a crazy week like this right before a big prison ministry time. I thought I was only scheduled to babysit during a Dallas Seminary mini-conference on Saturday. Apparently these kids are more important in building God’s kingdom than I realize.
A Kairos weekend did go on during the last half of this week. I just wasn’t directly involved in it this go around. I guess since the attacks couldn’t stop the weekend they had to happen to someone.
I’m glad it was me instead of someone less influential in serving God.
I’ll see you later. Wade
