Tag Archives: driving

Just Like a Trucker

Leave a reply

I liken myself to a trucker lately.  Minus the sleeping in your rig part.  Oh, and I have yet to stop at any truck stops or show any serious butt crack (that I’m aware of). How stereotypical am I?  I can hear you all now, “NOT ALL TRUCKERS LET THEIR CRACK HANG OUT!”  I don’t mean to offend.

Seriously though.  All this driving is pretty nutty.  I never realized just how upsetting the word “recalculating” could be until I’d been driving for hours on the verge of what I like to call a pee emergency.  When she says that word (my GPS is female), I nearly have a fit.  Ok, I do have a fit.  And the words that come out of my mouth aren’t that nice.  Something like, “Hello, you told me to stay left!  The highway veered right.  Get your shit together lady!”  Although the recalculation usually loses me a total of one or two minutes, it’s still upsetting.

When I’m not driving I’m either in a Lowe’s store delivering the training or eating crap from some fast food place (trucker style, again).  And the trainings have all gone really well, but you would not believe the comments that come out of people’s mouths when I say I’m from Utah.  One guy was like, “Do you ride a horse?”  Huh? You mean to get around?  I simply replied, “No, I don’t ride any horses.”  Mind you, these are very small towns I’m in, not anything like Salt Lake.  You know, towns where they drive tractors around.  It probably didn’t help that I let them know it was Pioneer Day yesterday and then explained what that meant.  The looks on their faces said it all.  Whatever, I like Pioneer Day.

I visit two stores in South Carolina tomorrow and then I get to start my trek home. In a plane, thankfully, not a car.  What is it with what people lug onto planes these days, by the way?  I have seriously seen people carrying their full size pillow and blanket.  Have you been on an airplane, people?  There is hardly enough room for your ass let alone your entire bed set!  Sorry, I’m tired.

One Down, Three to Go

1 Reply

I completed my first week of craziness on Thursday.  After driving 1,000 miles through 2 states, taking 4 flights and not landing until midnight, you could say I’m a little tired.  Or, you could be more accurate and say I’m exhausted.  I have to say though that I’m very happy with how smoothly things went.  I never got lost, never ran out of gas and all the training sessions were a success.  Of course I still have 3 weeks to go, so there’s plenty of time left for any of those things to happen.  Please pray that none of them do.

The only really traumatic encounter I experienced was the one with the crickets. Yep, crickets.  They are EVERYWHERE during this time of year in the south.  When I checked into my hotel in Marble Falls, Texas, there was a sign with a picture of Jiminy Cricket talking about the problem, which is very deceptive because the crickets aren’t anything like the one off of Pinocchio.  The one in my bathroom sink was big and scary, not cute and full of wisdom.  And even though I knew it would make me look like a complete ass, I asked the lady at the front desk if she would come get it for me.  I first thought about trying to drown it, but then I remembered how well they jump.  And forget about squashing it.  That’s way too much crunch for me.

Everyone there thought it was rather amusing; my fear of the crickets.  In one of the stores I trained in there were crickets all over the room.  Most of them were dead, but there were a few crawling around.  And when I was like, “Ummm there are a lot of crickets in here.”  They nonchalantly were like, “Oh yeah, they’re everywhere.”  Like we were talking about flowers or something.  Seriously people, why do you live here?!

Next week I hit 4 states; Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.  Stay tuned for more adventures from the south.  I’m sure there will be many.

If Life is a Highway…

Leave a reply

Have you ever said yes to something and then the next day you went, what the fuck was I thinking?  If not then you must be a really awesome decision maker.  I recently said yes to something and although I know I’ll get through it, I feel exhausted just thinking about it.  Basically I’m going to be traveling for 4 weeks straight (home on the weekends) starting in mid-July.  Oh, and most of the training I’ll be doing is in the south.  Yeah, in July!

It’s not the heat I’m worried about though.  It’s the crazy amount of driving.  This is a gig I’m doing for a different company, so they are short 1 hour trainings.  I do two a day.  Sounds easy.  Not so much.  Let me just give you a sneak peek at one week of my schedule:

Monday: Arrive in Ohio

Tuesday:  Train in Reynoldsburg, Ohio in the morning and then drive to Columbus for an afternoon session.  Then drive to West Virginia.

Wednesday:  Train in Buckhannon, West Virginia in the morning and then drive to Greensburg, Pennsylvania for an afternoon session.  Then drive to Liverpool, New York.

Thursday:  Train in Liverpool, New York in the morning and then drive to Erie Pennsylvania for an afternoon session.

Holy shit, right?!

If any of you have any good recommendations for books on CD, send them my way. I have a feeling it’s the only thing that will get me through those drives.  That and knowing that it will all be over soon and then I can be home with my family. I also have a feeling I’m going to be doing some motivational self-talking in my head telling myself just that… It will all be over soon, it will all be over soon.  No, you won’t kill anyone if you have to drive one more hour, no you won’t kill anyone if you have to drive one more hour.

The Code

Leave a reply

Last night we got pulled over on I-215.  We had no idea why we were getting pulled over; we weren’t speeding, car is registered, car would have alerted us if a light was out.  And then we realized it was because the cop was a total douche bag with nothing better to do.  He approached the car and was like, “The reason I pulled you over is because we have a move over law in Utah.”  Rob was like, “Yeah, I know.  I actually tried to get over when I saw your lights but I couldn’t because a car was there.”  And this is the truth.  He really did try to get over.  Officer Douche Bag stated that he “looked in his mirror and we had plenty of room.”  Seriously dude?

Ok, so thanks for the reminder.  We’ll be going now.  Nope.  Then Officer I’m-Really-Bored asked us where we were headed.  Why in the hell is this any of your business? Plus, Rob and I actually didn’t know where we were going.  We were deciding as we drove, so we gave completely different answers, which probably looked suspicious and would have been better if we said we were on our way to make a drug deal and kill a couple people.  Oh, and then he asked us where we were coming from and quickly asked for license and registration.

When he came back to the car he had printed a warning and also the code that talks about the “move over” law.  And get this… He asked us to share it with 10 of our friends.  (Quick side note:  dude had really nasty teeth and little pieces of spit kept flying out of his mouth and landing in the rig).  So we quickly scheduled a conference call to spread the word.  Yeah right.  Instead, we thought about reminding him of our codes.  Like the one we have that states no douche bags are allowed to approach our vehicle.  Also, no saliva is to exit anyone’s mouth while in the car.

While he had us pulled over we had at least 20 cars pass us without moving over. I’m pretty sure one of them now knows the code.