By
Rick & Christine.
 .
Firsts
This
job is FULL of firsts. I’ve experienced more first time experiences
after one week of driving a truck, then I have since I was a baby.
(Of course our instructor Bill tells us that we don’t even qualify as babies,
we’re embryos. That’s how much more information we have to learn,
and stamina to build yet. One night I asked him why we were stopping
for the night already, and he says: “Because you guys are still in the
embryo stage and you’re not ready to drive all night yet!”). Some
firsts are just stressful, like L.A..
Regardless
of whether you are the driver or navigator, L.A. is the very definition
of stress. I had planned on being the driver for our first L.A. trip,
but then Rick decided he wanted the pleasuire because he hadn’t had any
big city drive time yet, and I had (The previous day I drove us through
a VERY narrow, winding, congested section of Portland, OR. Basically
Bill said that’s as bad as city driving can get, and I did very well.).
So Bill made me the designated navigator for the first time. BIG
mistake Bill, because I haven’t had very much map reading/trip planning
experience.
While
I grew up in L.A., I was totally unfamiliar with the area we were in, which
was Carson. Anyway, I got us lost… in Carson… at rush hour.
I don’t even have an adjective to describe how miserable it was.
Of course this was after another eighteen-wheeler nearly took off our driver
side mirror with his passenger side mirror as he was passing us.
Bill was driving when that occurred. We had to pull onto the shoulder
of the freeway and examine our trucks.
Fortunately
there was no damage to either truck, and we simply bent our mirrors back
into place and went our merry ways. When we resumed driving Bill
had me sending messages via Qualcomm (that’s our onboard computer that
keeps us in constant contact with dispatch)
about
the incident, and then calling the accidents division at headquarters on
the cell phone.
After
all of that, he had the nerve to ask me where we were. At that point
I got the two different locations (drop site and pick-up site) confused
and we ended up twenty minutes farther south before Bill realized my mistake.
I then gladly handed the maps to Rick, and resigned myself from navigator
to apologetic passenger. Let someone else try and read tiny numbers
while bouncing down hellacious freeways!!
As
if all of this wasn’t miserable enough, add air the color of vomit so thick
you choke on it, and an economically depressed area rampant with crime,
and graffiti everywhere you turn.
Yes,
that was an ugly first, but there are a lot of good ones to combat it.
Like blowing the air horn for the first time for a little girl in Portland
and seeing her whole face light up (see Mom, I’m not hard-hearted all the
time!). Or the challenge of backing into a truck stop parking space
on the first try and having another trucker honk his horn and give me the
thumbs up sign with a big smile.
[Lookin' at the world through a windshield]
Right
now we’re heading to Ohio. This will be my first time to Ohio, first
time in the Eastern time zone, and I’m hauling my first high value load.
I’d love to tell you what it is, but then I’d have to kill you.
One
more first, and this is the most important one of all: this is the first
job I’ve ever had where I feel like I’m doing something of purpose.
This is an important job. Trucks are really vital in keeping the
economy of
this
country healthy.
Remember,
if you bought it a truck brought it.
--Christine |
