On Time - Barely!

It's Thursday night and I am bedding down in my sleeper in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Love's Truck Stop.  When I returned to Delhi on Tuesday they had my next load ready to go about four o'clock that afternoon.  It is a load headed for Edgerton, Ohio and it has it's first stop in St. Louis at a place called French Gerleman.  They stop receiving at 3:00 and by the time I got my load secured and ready to roll at Delhi I had about five legal hours to drive, which I used as carefully as I could to get myself up to Marion, Arkansas where I stopped for my required ten hour break.  Then just as soon as I could I got myself back on the road and made it into the Shipping/Receiving clerk's door at ten minutes to three!

Sometimes it helps to make friends with these people who have the power to really mess up your day, and I knew I was pushing all the limits by rolling in here at quitting time, but what else could I do?  I had done everything in my power to get here on time, but the folks who give this stuff to me don't really understand what all we do to make things happen, or if they did I would think they would try to get these loads ready a little sooner so we aren't breaking our necks to make their company look good to it's customers.  The receiving clerk just rolled his eyes and then looked up at the clock on the wall and asked me "You do know it is quitting time don't you?"  So I tried my best to be comical with him and said "Yes sir, and I am very sorry about that, but if you only knew what I went through to get this to you on time, then you would probably agree that it is nothing short of miraculous that I am here as early as I am.  Now surely you wouldn't take a guy who just experienced a miracle to get this to you on time and tell him that you are not going to unload him would you?  He tried to hide his smile as he told me which door of the huge warehouse to back my truck into.

As soon as we got his stuff off I headed on to Indianapolis where I will deliver all but five of the pieces left on my truck to Hoosier Trim first thing in the morning.  Then I will make my way over into Edgerton, Ohio where I will empty out my trailer and then find out what I am doing next.  It snowed on me a little bit at St, Louis, but then it cleared as I started heading out to Indianapolis.