"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY___GGGGRRRRRRRR!!!!!"

Look, I have been out here way to long this time and I want to go home. I tell dispatch and they just don't get it. I tell the customers, and they just don't care. I tell my wife and she is in agreement with me. So here we are in Californication trying to get to Wild and Wonderful Almost Heaven. We get a load that will deliver to Belle, WV.....about 100 miles from home. It is a hot hoT hOT HOT load..you know the kind..and we roll our eyes because the only way a load gets there faster then we get it there is when we are backing it up to the dock. Anyway, gotta go gotta go. Everything is going great "TILL" we are about 60 miles from Flagstaff,AZ on I-17. Then engine decides it wants a break, I guess it did not get the memo about the hot load crap. It, the engine, decides it really wants to rest and shuts its self off. I coast the truck to the shoulder and pop the hood. The engine is really pushing my buttons, the anti-freeze in the reservoir is but a hair width below the add line. I tell it that is really walking a fine line with me and add some anti-freeze to the piece of_____well, you know____ and close the hood and take off on up the mountain. Now we are about 35 miles from Flagstaff and "IT"____it seems to want to have another conversation with me_____lets go with a cloud of smoke from under the hood and shuts its self off again leaving me to man handle the steering wheel in order to get it to the side of the road. I come out of the drivers seat and on to the ground in one swift movement, I am not a happy camper. I yank open the hood to find myself in a cloud of smoke, steam and god awful anti-freeze smell. All of the fluid that was in the radiator is now on the ground under the engine, truck, trailer and flowing down the hill. "CRAP!!!" Not only is there no water left in the reservoir, the radiator cap is also missing, I left it loose the last time we stopped. Now I have to open the side box to get out the damn triangles, I really hate putting these out, they never go back in the box right. Had to call breakdown to send someone out here in the middle of know where. I told them about the missing cap, I told them about the missing fluid and I told them that there was a hose that seemed to be leaking. Four hours latter the Bubba shade tree wanna be mechanic showed up. Golly gee, what kind of engine is that, what model truck is that, what is that bottom part of the resevoir for????????? AAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYHHHHHHHHH ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME????!!!! I ask if he brought a hose....nope....did he bring any anti-freeze...nope. Gosh driver, I got 9 gallons of water to put in that there thing. Well, alrighty then there Bubba, you go right ahead and do your mechanican so I can get going. Glug glug glug, water in. The engine starts. Bubba makes a make-shift cover for the missing cap and off we go. This time we get 5 miles and yelp, you guessed it, on the side again. Why, his cover did not hold. He makes another and we make it to Flagstaff. He goes buys a real cap and then comes back and drains about 3 gallons out of the radiator and replaces it with real honest to goodness anti-freeze. He leaves and we leave. The next day we are in Oklahoma City,OK and
Bubba calls and ask how far we got______not even he trusted himself_____ and was surprised to hear we had made it that far, you could almost hear him slapping his leg. He says that he guessed he would go ahead then and call the company with the work invoice, that in its self is a joke...the "WORK" invoice. What work?

Now dispatching starts there childish games wondering how fast we can get to Belle,WV. I tell them and they say ok, then I get another message wanting me to get it there 3 hours sooner then I said. "WHY DO YOU EVEN ASK IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO ACCEPT WHAT I SAY???"___on the inside, on the outside..ok, I will try.

Don't they know that this load is taking us home and we are going to get there as fast as we can and aren't they lucky that there load just happens to be in that plan?

Anyway, we get there and then we drive a little more and we are home. There just has to be an easier way.


You all be safe........Later, Brad