Kinda suckish

I'm exhausted......but this ended up being one of those nights where something happened or was said right before time for bed and I find myself unable to go to sleep.  So y'all are going to get an update on my kinda sucky week so far.

Realized earlier today that I actually get TWO Mondays! My work week starts Sunday afternoon or evening depending on how long it takes me to get motivated to leave so there's MY Monday.  Then the next day I get to deal with everybody else dealing with THEIR Monday.......blech!!!!!!!

So my "Monday" starts off with thunderstorms, high winds, and flooding all before I even get to my big truck.  That set the pace for the entire trip from N. Little Rock to Pulaski, TN.  Traffic on I40 is always bumper to bumper anyway so throw in some hellacious sheeting rain and you end up going 35 mph for 50-60 miles.  Storms would pause just long enough for me to roll my shoulders and then it was back to fighting the steering wheel to keep my truck in the proper lane. On and on and on......well for 330 miles anyways.

This morning finds me dealing with a cranky crew at Pulaski plus a very obnoxious driver who sooooo didn't deserve the Peterbilt he was driving.  He bitched and moaned about Highway 64 and how slow it was, demanded to know where I was going, how long it would take me, what route I was going, etc.  None of this was done in a polite, friendly tone of voice and to top it off he wouldn't even allow me to finish one sentence before snapping out another question.  I very quickly went back to playing on my iphone & tried to ignore his obnoxious arse.  After this he then proceeded to tell me that a state trooper had the audacity to write him a speeding ticket for 4 miles over the speed limit.  Well, so what.....I was pulled over for 5 mph over in that same area 3ish years ago but only received a warning because I was POLITE to the officer. Wow, what a concept.....If he talked to the cop the way he did me, no wonder he got the ticket.

The trip to Gadsden was fairly uneventful and I got out quickly but Lola the truck decided to be a temperamental bitch and started going haywire when I got off at the Steele, AL exit to fuel.  It started when I had to come to a sudden stop when another driver pulled out in front of me. When I had to stop suddenly, my truck was in the middle of changing gears and that confused the hell out of the computer.  Display on the dash started flashing 5 (the gear I was sorta in when I had to come to a sudden stop) and the truck wouldn't shift up or down, even when I switched to the manual override.  So I end up limping the truck into the fuel stop with it surging and sounding like I had no clue how to drive.  I knew from experience that if I shut the truck down for 15-30 minutes that the computer would end up resetting itself.  The trick was to get into a parking spot with the transmission going haywire. I didn't want to be nose in, in case the computer didn't reset & I had to be towed to a shop. 

This finds me in a bit of a predicament because the truck usually won't go into reverse while this is occurring (listen to me, sounds like it happens all the time, but this was only the 2nd time).  Thankfully, there are some spots that are kind of downhill so I just line up for a spot & hope that the truck will coast backward into it all the way.  It did, thank gawd, surging & jerking all the way, lol.......Once I get parked, I shut the truck off & wait a few moments, then turn the key.......Lola's engine isn't turning over at all, EEP!!!!!!!!

So, deep breath, decide to go in, get my shower and come back out to see what happens then.......Lola starts!!!!!!! and goes into gear!!!!!!!!  We're in business.....or are we?  Get to the fuel island, leave the truck idling, fuel up, get back in & start to pull forward...........oh great, the transmission is confused again.......it's at this point I'm thinking that uh-oh, this is not gonna turn out good.  Go inside, get my receipt and explain to the fuel desk attendant that I need orange cones placed behind my truck because I'm gonna be there a while.  She was cool about it and understood right off why I was requesting them (so that other trucks didn't line up behind me to wait for fuel).  That is not a super busy fuel stop yet, thankfully, so I caused a minimal amount of delays.  This time though, I took the added step of going into the battery box and disconnecting the main cable--this speeds up the reset process.

Finally get the damn truck going again and head out to try and get to Louisiana at a reasonable hour only to find that 10 miles down the road a tanker truck had wrecked and gone into the median not 5-6 minutes prior to me arriving there.....  There was debris everywhere though, big chunks of metal & plastic but all the traffic was able to zigzag around it & get on by before the emergency crews shut everything down. The driver was out and walking around, so it's a relief knowing he came out of it ok, whew.......

That was the end of my problems though, so maybe the trip on down to Laredo will be smooth sailing from here on.....and hopefully I'll be able to get to sleep now.

The cause of today's headaches!!! Lola the truck in her resting place after coasting down the hill.