Getting Under My Skin| Medical Mystery

Between being at the shop a lot and not loving my dispatchers, I was having a great time at work. When you live full time in your truck, you live in the office. There’s no escaping your management. They run your ass! One time, they have me another older truck while mine was in the shop. This was a Freightliner. I didn’t hate it. It drive quite well! Also! It had curtains! It was also cleaner in looks than how my Volvo was when I got it. Granted, you can never tell what’s lurking in the background! I’m out for 6 days, then back to the yard for 2 off. While out there on day 4, I get a call from manager.

American Green Card Update

If you’ve been a reader of my more than ten year old blog for a while, you’ve seen me go through ups and downs in this beautiful country of America. The promised land. I’ve had visas, they’ve expired, I’ve had the renewed; I’ve been honored to receive different visas with different privileges and I’ve had the revoked. I’ve even been deported! Kinda! They’ve sent me the paperwork to vacate The US in 30 days. I’ve been through it all! I didn’t want to marry someone for a green card and have that hanging over my neck for life. Nothing against those who do go that route. This is one of the reasons when my ex husband,  who was emotionally and verbally abusive, tried to use American citizenship as a carrot to dangle over my heard, I noped the f*ck out. You found me in this country! It is not because of you that I’m in America, and it will NOT be because of you that I leave. Good bye! That backfired on his ass! Go tell all your friends who suspected that I married you for a green card that I left! You’ve been yelling at me in public, making a spectacle of yourself, saying you pay for everything but now I’m leaving. Was I as dependent on you as you claimed I was? The joke’s on you, Sir! Biggest mistake you’ll ever make in your life! You can’t say you have not been warned! 

Hair Loss Minoxidil Side Effects

At the age of 10, I was shipped off to Boarding school. The students, myself included, compared this catholic school to jail. By the way, how come no one ever uses Gaol spelling for jail? We had to shave off our hair every school term. That’s 4 times a year! I was in for 5 years. That’s going bald 20 times in 5 years. Meditate on that! (Don’t!).

Being Falsely Accused

 Back in the day, I worked as a receptionist for a massage company. They had several branches around Johannesburg, South Africa. I was one of, if not the only receptionist with a car, so they had me report to different branches whenever need be. I had initially applied there as a therapist. It was a Chinese massage place but does it hurt to try? I was lucky to end up hired, regardless. I liked how close to my place all their branches were. They were in decent neighborhoods. I got to meet some celebrities in some of their locations. 

Sexual Harassment in Trucking

 

Here’s a different #SexualHarrassment experience I had. Press play

At the risk of stating the obvious, there aren't a lot of women in the trucking field. I was one of a handful at ht terminal I was based off of once they moved me to a new account. Of course, I was reporting to three women, so we had females in the office but they never went to the yard. I guess this put myself and the other female truckers at the risk of feeling like animals in the zoo. Story of my life. Cue all the blogs from Georgia here! No, I am not looking for a boyfriend, husband or team mate!I know I am a beautiful woman walking by myself. I have a friendly smile, but this is not the woods. Everybody calm down! I got a lot more looks in this small terminal than I did at the other one that was several times bigger! What gives? There's a guy I met my first weekend at the terminal.  I was settling into my truck, still unpacking the rest of my stuff. I wasn't attached to a trailer, so I was able to park close to the building, for bathroom convenience.

PMS Cravings

 Sidebar: it’s September 30th and I just tried on some non stretchy jeans to see where I stand with regards to everything weight and size. They’re my smallest jeans. I fit into them comfortably. But I’m heavier on the scale than I was when I first fit into them. Is the scale a scam? Anywho, I hope you had a great month of Sept. I did! 

Healthy meal prepped for me by Colombian friend

SMOG test FAIL

 Now that I’m ‘home’ more often, I’m using my own car often. I love my car. If you’ve been with me for years, you’ll remember that I visualized my car to manifestation. That’s one of the reasons I’m so attached to it. I could’ve sold it when I got rid of my apartment to live in a truck. When I was over the road, I hardly came home, so I would do my errands wherever I would be when they came up. Same applies to chores.

Colombian Arepas that my friend made while I waited for mechanic to work on my car. 

Runaway Truck!

 Not long after getting the truck back, by the way, they hadn't take care of any of the extra things they had asked me to make a list of; I was helping out on another account. This route took me to Vegas. Was I looking forward to doing something different? I always prided myself on  being adventurous must be age, cos I would rather keep things familiar, if I can help it, nowadays.

What is this? A Christmas tree?

Broken Down in Middle of Freeway

 Back to having no friends again! Nobody to talk to. Poor me! Someone give #TruckerBrook a hug! Oh, wait, don't, we're in a pandemic! One of the things my ex-husband, Calvin brought up when I vented to him about them giving me a filthy truck to move into. He was like, you know that's borderline illegal, right? They shouldn't have just gotten your truck cleaned, they should've had it sanitized. Out for the week that I do my run for before going back to the terminal for my two days off, and boom! Truck died on the I-5 freeway! It just died! So, I was able to pull off only onto the shoulder, but like, right along the line, so too close to the road still. The sun was right above me and there was barely any cell signal. I know I mention this signal thing a lot but it's true. I have never had this problem living in a Third world country and Second world,ie, South Africa and Georgia respectively. But hello First world America! Hello Trucking! You get to be in the grey areas where cell network companies don't see it necessary to place a tower. And of course, that's where I'm going to get into a ditch or get stuck on a bridge,  get run over by a serial killer truck driver, or, in this latest case, die.

I sent message to new manager. That's jut to let her know, otherwise, what's she gonna do? She couldn't authorize me to get curtains for a truck, how's she gonna help me when the whole truck dies? I was there for hours. You're not getting paid extra or anything like that, being stuck here by the way. If you're out there for more than a certain amount of time, your clock will reset and you will be 'able' to start working as soon as your truck's ready.In which case, you will have spent your sleeping time on the side of the 5 freeway, trying to call for help. These things happen more often than you can imagine. Some people still take their break, but I'd like to think more drivers, just consider that their break and get on the road after, with very little rest. I was outside on the dirt, walking around with the phone on speaker, waving it up in the sky to pick up signal. Roadside assistance would finally pick up. I'd give them my details, then they wouldn't be able to hear me. I'd move a hair and the call would disconnect. They would call me right away and go straight to voicemail, or and blah blah blah. Same story, over and over for a while. Eventually, I got hold of them. They sent someone  from not far away. The person they were going to send didn't have the part they suspected I would need, so they had to go far away to buy it and then come back. I think it would've been better to dispatch someone from afar,and have them head straight for my location. But what do I know? I'm just a female with common sense. 

Guy finally arrived. At this point, I had found the sweet spot of cell signal inside the truck. I guess it works best being inside than out, cos the truck is taller than me trying to wave a cellphone. I kept the phone plugged in and situated on that very spot. I only took the calls on speaker. I don't generally receive phone calls. Most of the people I communicate with text me. Well, they message me on Whatsapp. They're overseas. The guy worked on my truck for a bit and then, uhm, it was time for him to go home, haha! You can't make this sh*t up! He also needed another part for the truck. They had someone else come relieve him. Said person would also bring the new part. The new guy was also friendlier, so we chatted a bit. he was fast. Done within an hour. The problem was a brake line that had a leak. The truck uses air breaks. All the air was leaking out, truck switched off as a safety measure. It was night by the time the guy was done. In fact, I think I was out there for about 8 hours. On the side of the freeway from noon until 8! Imagine that! Nobody stops to find out if you're ok, even though you have the orange cones out. Also, they don't know how long you've been there for, if you know how to fix, are you male or female, blah blah blah. It could also be a set up. Maybe you're a killer or blah.

I don't do night driving and because everything I did on the account was within California, I could afford to go rest somewhere, and still make my appointments after picking up the next load. I found a place with a ginormous dirt lot more than an hour away. I save the places I part at, so I am able to look at my map app and see where what is in time of need. The dirt lot place has a super expensive restaurant with great reviews. I am not a restaurant out eater when I am working, so, that was whatever. They also have no showers but restrooms for us. So that's always good. 

When I was off, the truck needed to go into the shop. I had a list of things that I wanted them to have a look at as long as they had the truck in there. They told me that they needed to send it to Volvo. It was within some warranty. I had to move my stuff out into a temporary truck. So far, I was having a great time on this account. They moved me into another unsanitized account. I cleaned it myself. It wasn't filthy, it just wasn't cleaned since the  driver before me used it. I didn't want to complain. I used it for the week I was going to be out and hoped that mine was going to be ready when I got back. It was. You know what that means: moving again. CArrying fridges, microwaves, and other heavy stuff. I cook in my truck, so it's always fun to move the whole kitchen. 

There was a mattress (wow, is that how you spell matrass?), so I didn't have to move that. But I worry about bed bugs and stuff. I do take my fitted shit and hope it will keep everything buried under it. Whew! I literally just took a giant breath, at the thought of these silly challenges of this job. It's not just your job, it's also your home life. I had used an older Freight liner while my Volvo was in the shop. I'm familiar with a Freightliner, so it wasn't a train smash. 

Felt good to be back in my Volvo again. Not for any reason other than, it was MY truck.

@BabalwaBrook on all social

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No Love Lost

Another “weekend” came by. “” because, the two days off can fall on any day. I had worked more than two years over there road. The pay scale and other things are all different from how they run things on the dedicated account I had just signed with. I was still going to get paid mike but they were going to pay me for additional stops as well. I did two and three stops per delivery, that means, one extra stop and two, respectively. OTR (over the road) you wanna finish early and can get the load off you if you contact customer or ask manager to have it dropped at the yard. All that doesn’t apply here. You be at Costco at the scheduled time, however you get there. Some deliveries were 200 miles away from shipper. I’d stop close to Costco and relax in the truck. I enjoyed those long afternoons of rest before my appointment the following day. You don't want too many of these because you’re not on vacation. You get paid when sitting behind the wheel not chillin in the sleeper berth. 

More of Derrick’s cooking. I bought him those Adidas slides. I also got myself a pair