Apprehensive In Florida

Daytona, Florida. I'm on I-95, about to merge onto I-4 to head down to delivery in Kissimmee. I'm really apprehensive about this. But I couldn't tell you why. I've delivered to this customer many times, and it's almost always painless.

I guess more than anything I'm apprehensive about what my dispatcher and the load planner might have in store for me next. They proved last week that they had no problem with hurting me and my family to make a point. Even though I'll be arriving when I said I would, I had to fuel off of the fuel routing yesterday because my fuel card wouldn't work at my designated fuel stop. So I won't be surprised if my fuck-tard dispatcher throws a tantrum today. That's usually followed by some kind of punitive action, such as a crap load.

I shouldn't be driving down the road with a sense of impending doom hanging over me. That's how much my relationship with Epes has deteriorated (due mostly to Fuck-tard). I often often refer to waiting for my next load as “seeing what they'll do to me next”. And when I leave Kings Mountain after visiting Mama, my standard goodbye is “I'll call and let you know when it all goes to hell”.

Really, what more do I have to say?

I'm looking forward to ending this waking nightmare. For a long time now driving a truck has felt more like a sentence to me than a job. Fuck-tard has made that worse by, in effect, becoming my personal tormentor. He's the demonic guard who comes by once a day and blasts freezing water into my cell with a firehose.

Someone wrote and asked me last week what had happened to my “witty and wonderful observations of life on the road”. I told her honestly that after Mara left me and I lost everything, I'd tried to turn my exile on the truck into some great adventure. For a little while that had worked. But it's been a year and a half since Mara left. Over a year since I abandoned the house to its fate. In that time I've largely gone to the same places over and over. How many times can you write about the same places?

There's no story here. No life to chronicle. That “interesting introspection” has long since given way to resignation and stubborn survival.

I have no idea what I'm trying to say. Maybe just that I'm looking forward to moving on. I'm sorry, but there's nothing to see here. Right now I'm just a guy looking to the life that's waiting for me on the other side of these last few days. The only angst or apprehension comes from knowing that it's unlikely that I'll get through this week without being hosed down with that proverbial jet of freezing water. However wonderful the next phase of my life may be, I have to finish up with this one first. And to be honest, I just don't expect much of this last week.