Tuesday morning. I'm waiting for Mara to come back with the truck. We're trying to get out of here early this morning. Well, earlier than usual, anyway. Ray expects us to correct a mistake that was made last week. Apparently we took a load to Waukegan that was supposed to go to Memphis. Okay, so we fucked up by not checking the destination; but we've hauled several loads up there that have the wrong destination on the bills, but are still supposed to go to Waukegan. We had the right pickup number, and that's usually the big thing.

Anyway, Ray was wagging his finger at us. Of course, he said "no one is accusing you" but it sure sounded like blame was being laid squarely at our feet. Not a big surprise at U.S. Xpress. But looked at in a different way, irregardless of the printed definition, we used the pickup number that Ray gave us. So if the destination was wrong, then Ray gave us the wrong pickup number. We had two other wrong pickup numbers last week as well. That means that 3 of our 4 pickup numbers were wrong last week. That's the main reason I'm having a hard time accepting responsibility for this problem.

Regardless, we're the ones who are going to have to fix it. Ray would have been perfectly happy for us to cut our day off short and to have picked up the missing load (the load that we were supposed to take to Waukegan is still sitting up there in North Cove, and that's the one we'll be picking up today). Yeah. Good luck. I think we most likely would have preferred to go back to regular fleet than do that. We earn our days off, and we guard them very jealously.

Anyway, our last few weeks have been fucked up. I guess this week will be, too. We're heading into the week with a possible overdraft hanging over our checking account, and are scrambling to find some way to get some money into the bank. Most of the reason for that is the fact that I went and picked up my other two Carlo Robelli basses from Sam Ash yesterday. Admittedly, that money wasn't in the bank. It was cash in my pocket. But we stretched it thin anyway.

As for the basses, I am really impressed. The 6-string sounds and plays great. The fretless sounded okay, but doesn't have the active electronics like the 6-string does. Then I put on a set of flatwound nylon strings (supposedly to protect the fretboard from damage; regular roundwound strings bite into the fretboard). It came with roundwound strings, and I kind of liked the sound. The flatwound strings completely changed its sound, making it sound a bit more like a standup bass. I'm not sure I like that. So in the end I guess I'll have to weigh potential fretboard damage against sound. Dave (at Sam Ash) pointed out that Jaco Pastorius used roundwound strings on his fretless bass. I asked him if he had ever seen the condition of Jaco's bass at the time of his death.

Anyway, I don't have time to get into this. I haven't had time to do much of anything, either today or yesterday. In typical fashion we got in late yesterday (around 8am), and then I spent much of the afternoon and early evening trying to get those basses from Sam Ash. Mara and I had gone to Charlotte and were pulling up in front of Sam Ash when Mama called and told us that I had left my wallet (and money) at home. So we came back to Kings Mountain. What other choice did we have? When I went back to Charlotte, Mama rode with me and Mara stayed home to get our clothes washed and to get us ready to leave. I enjoyed spending some time with Mama. We don't get to do that much.