After months of being constantly stressed to the point of wanting to kill myself, I finally found out why my relationship with my girl is on the rocks... September was the month from hell for me... In the last week of August I got a concussion that put me out for two weeks, no work = no pay... when I was allowed to come back things only got worse; over the next two weeks I had to down stack over ten pallets by hand (each piece weighing in at no less than 50lbs on several of those... you try down stacking 850lbs of canned goods and tell me I'm a wimp). After that I got a back haul from around Topeka, ks, that would have been okay except for two things: three months of not having to slide the tandem axles on the trailer to balance the load I'd gotten out of the habit and forgot to slide them back to the 40' mark before leaving so I got a 215$ fine for being 2800lbs overweight on my drives when I pulled into the next weight station... okay... that was my fault, but it still pissed my off that the lady absolutely had to give me a ticket as she was agreeing with me that it was only a minor problem that could be fixed and that I really didn't do anything wrong to begin with, "it was just a simple mistake". so... there's another week's pay down the tubes... the second thing that was wrong that night, (which I was able to sneak out of the weight station before the lady could write me up for this too) was that the electrical gremlins in my truck had decided to run amok and put a couple of lights out... even though the bulbs were good... So, I had to put it in the shop and my boss put me in a loner truck; I'll get to that in a second.
So after I get the truck back to the terminal, I ask my boss if he can take it, or have someone take it to the shop five miles down the road; "okay no problem". Three days later the truck is still sitting in the yard... untouched. I take the truck over to the shop, and am given a loaner... woof. . .
Inherently there was nothing wrong with this truck, it ran, everything worked, were good right? Nope. I'd gotten only about four hours of sleep the night before, not a big deal there I'd driven non stop to Omaha on less and I was only going to Hutchinson and Hays, the latter of the two being about two hundred and twenty miles from my home terminal in Goddard. I should have known something was up almost instantly when I seen the foot plate on the driver's side was jacked around in a way that, had it been raining, I'd never have gotten into the truck on the driver's side. When I opened the door I almost collapsed as the smell of cigarette smoke triggered a violent asthma attack; I called my boss and told him what was going on, he even came out and got in the truck, denied that he smelled anything and told me that the truck was okay the large coffee cup full of tobacco spit and cigarette butts sitting in the console should have suggested to him that I was telling the truth and that the cab had aired itself out a little by the time he got there... but that wasn't the issue that caused a problem later that evening.
As I was heading for Hutchinson, a 45minute drive from Wichita (give or take depending on the route and traffic) I started noticing that I was getting tired a little faster than normal, and that my nose was burning, like when you smell a perfume that's a little too strong, I thought it was just the dozen or more air fresheners the primary drive had in the cab and discounted it as that. I felt a little better while I waited for my truck to be unloaded at the first stop, though I was still dizzy and slightly light headed (I assumed from being tired only). As I got back out on the road I started noticing that the longer the heater was on (it was chilly and I was cold) the more tired I got, and the more my eyes and nose burned from this really fruity, sweet, metallic smell in the truck. I got to Hays so freakin tired that I nearly wasn't able to get out of the truck to go in and give the guy the paperwork and tell him that I was getting "salvage" from them to take back to Hutch. (In between the time I left Hutch and got to Hays I had had a cluster fuck with getting the truck fueled up, but that's not as relevant...)
After a little while inside the store I got some food, and was starting to feel more awake again, so I went back out into the truck, guess what, no strange smell, I got suspicious because the smell had dissipated in Hutch too... well, long story short they got me unloaded and reloaded and I was on my way back to Hutch to drop the trailer... I hadn't even got out of the parking lot when I started to smell that smell again... and by the time I was getting onto the highway I was again almost falling asleep... I figured that because I'd made it there I could make it back, it was by no means a long run and normally, even with the lack of sleep I would have been able to do it without a problem... but after waking up several times to the sound of the rumble strip, or a muscle spasm jarring me back to reality, I was beginning to think that I wasn't going to... I was right. After one more time of waking up with a start, and realizing that I wasn't in the lane I was in a minute a go, I started looking for a place to pull over... to no avail... the last thing I remember is that I'm driving under a bridge, whether it's the same bridge that I was near to or not I don't know... I think it was, but after reaching that bridge, the next thing I remember is hearing a loud crash and bouncing along rather violently in the ditch along side the road... How I got there I couldn't tell you, but I was there and I was stuck.
I tried to get out... nothing doing, Kansas dirt has a lot of clay in it, particularly up north, so when it gets wet... you're stuck. So I called for help on the computer in the cab; after two hours they finally got back with me and told me that help was on the way. Now, I can handle the fact that they were slow to respond, but only because I wasn't hurt... if I'd been hurt, I'd have a law suit going against them right now because the entire time I was waiting for the wrecker to come and pull me out of the ditch (thank God I kept this thing upright...) I couldn't close my eyes and get some sleep, mind you I've already calmed myself back down and realized that I was okay. So, after the wrecker gets there, and I'm pulled out, I get on my way, a little wiser for the wear, and a lot embarrassed, but otherwise okay, there's no major damage to the truck that will make it unsafe to drive, so there's no problem, right?
Wrong; I had gotten no more than ten miles when that peculiar smell (which had again dissipated while the truck was off) came back and I started getting tired again, unable to keep my eye open tired... So I rolled down the windows, and drove all the way back to Hutch without any problem at all... It was getting very cold by this time so I rolled the windows back up and hooked up to a new trailer to take it back to Goddard, only one problem now... safety is telling me to shut down because I'm out of hours... my clock says zero, I'm not allowed to move, at this point, having dealt with this company's incompetence for six months, do you think I give a fuck? Nope... I tell safety that I'm shutting down, sign out of my computer and drive back to Goddard. When I get there I turn in my keys and say never again.
I tell my boss about the smell, and naturally, he tells me that I don't know what I'm talking about; but that doesn't matter now, because I just took a lifetime's worth of stress off of my shoulders and I feel great, better than I have in months! Now all I had to do was make amends for ruining my relationship with my girl, the wreck helped me to see that it was the stress caused by my job that had made things too difficult for her to handle, and I realized that I was very wrong to blame her for the relationship going in the toilet. She didn't deserve that and I apologized and promised that I wouldn't ever do that again, because when that wreck happened I had just had an argument with her about something not relevant to this post, and the last thing I said to her was very hurtful... and I came to the realization that I could very easily have died that night if even the slightest of circumstances had been different and that I would have died with her thinking that I hated her...
That wreck put things in perspective for me, and I feel that for everyone I've talked to and complained to, I owe all of you my most sincere and heartfelt apologies... none of you deserved to be treated like shit by me, and I was the one that was to blame for things that were going down hill in my life; you are all really great friends, fans, and people, and I love you guys very much thank you all for sticking by my side thought this and I hope that I'll never be put in a position that I am ever that stressed again...