Fond Memories, Doing What It Takes, and a "Prodigious Bargain"

It's Sunday afternoon about 4:00. I'm sitting in Madison, Georgia where I just woke up from sleeping after driving all through the night last night. I arrived here about 8 or 9 in the morning – I was so tired I really didn't even check to see what time it was. I'm at the Pilot truck stop where Sarah and I stayed last year on Easter Morning. I mention that because it may help her remember it – we walked together down a few blocks from here last year and attended a local church for their Easter morning service. We also took a nice walk through a field of bright yellow wild flowers.

Do you remember that Sarah?

I'm on my way to deliver this load of extruded aluminum products to seven different locations. My first stop will be at seven in the morning at New Bern North Carolina. Then I will proceed to Charlotte, NC - West Columbia, SC – Duncan, SC – Anderson, SC – Powder Springs, GA – and finally, Northport, AL.

I had originally been assigned a load going down to Miami, Florida, but as it turned out the driver who was supposed to deliver this load didn't have the legal working hours available to him so they swapped it over to me, and here I am back on the night shift trying to work a miracle and get this all accomplished. The successful truck driver always does what he can to keep that relationship of trust between himself and his dispatcher.  The way you get the good runs, and therefore the good money in this job is to always exceed that dispatcher's expectations, and believe me, they sometimes expect a lot!  Performance is everything in this business, and it is a challenge to always keep yourself at the top of the food chain.

I really appreciate my dispatcher, he is a hard worker, and recognizes that same trait in me – we work together real well, and he is all the time throwing extra pay onto my paychecks just because he appreciates the fact that I often go the extra mile to make things work out properly. I do what it takes, and he makes sure I am compensated for it – I have never asked him for a single extra dime, but almost every week, I will see a line item on may paycheck for what they call x-pay.

I stumbled across a bargain this week. I had been on the look out for a small electric skillet to use in my truck for cooking. I often use a crock pot, but that is for the kind of meals that will be cooking all day while I am driving down the road. I love to cook, and it definitely helps me save money out on the road, while it also helps me to eat healthier meals. A small electric skillet could be used for a quick meal of some sauteed vegetables, or even the quick cooking of a piece of meat like a pork chop, or a small steak. It could also be used to cook some eggs in the morning – it just seemed like a useful appliance, but I was having trouble locating one with a small enough amperage rating. I'm limited on my electricity output by the inverter that I'm using in the truck.

I was in a Fred's Discount store recently getting a few groceries when I spotted a small skillet that had all the right requirements. I purchased it for the mere price of $12.95! I dare say that Henry Tilney, the man whose passion was his Pinery in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, would have declared it a “prodigious bargain” had he known as much about electric skillets as he knew about muslins. Here it is – it's very small with only a six inch cooking surface, but I think it will suffice for my needs. I haven't used it yet, but next time I get to do some more grocery shopping I will definitely look for something I can try to prepare in it.

Well, time is slipping away, I must start getting myself down the highway and through the night so I can be at New Bern by seven in the morning. I'll probably sleep on the receiver's property.  Next time you're at the store getting your favorite brand of toilet paper off the shelf, take a moment and realize that some lowly truck driver may have risked life and limb passing through some frozen mountain pass so you could easily reach over from the comfort of the grocery store aisle and put that little item in your basket.