Ray sent us a message that said that next week we have to pick up our first load "no later than 9am" (about 2 1/2 hours earlier than we usually do). This is 1) Ray's way of telling us that we're on double secret probation, and 2) part of his belief that our leaving two hours earlier would make up for pesky little delays like being in a shop for 8 hours.

In short, like all yuppies Ray doesn't necessarily have to understand a problem to believe he has a solution. For example, we're running late for our Chicago Heights pickup. We're running late because Ray insisted that we switch out a rejected trailer at Bedford Park first thing, which cost us about three hours. Left to our own devices, we would have switched out the trailer after Chicago Heights to make sure we made that pickup on time.

So who's to blame here? Sure, if we had left a few hours earlier we wouldn't be as late. But without Ray's meddling we wouldn't be three hours behind. And I don't imagine there's any point in telling Ray that I-75 was closed last night at the Kentucky / Tennessee border, and that the traffic jam that it caused and the wild detour around it on skinny backroads through the Tenn. hills cost us about 3 hours, as well.

Ray thinks all these issues can be corrected if we just left two hours earlier. Of course I imagine Ray would be happy if we didn't go home for a day every week. Oh, well. Rant's over. We won't have to deal with Ray much longer. Just until Mara's surgery. After that we'll be human beings again.