Princeton, IL

I'm starting to get this good attitude towards Chicago. I don't hate it as much and am glad to be going there a lot since I like the city itself and Margaret & Jeff live there and there's a terminal there and I'm getting to know the city while it's not snowy and detoury so if I'm still driving come winter, it won't be as bad as last one.

There's a certain thing with certain cities where I'll either have good luck or I have bad luck. Very rarely do I fall somewhere in between. An example would be my last stint in Los Angeles. Another example would be my last visit to Chicago.

I had a delivery to Aurora, IL to drop the trailer there and pick up an empty one and head to a pick up down the road by 1200 and deliver it to Pontiac, MI the next day. My plan was to drop the load, head to the other one, get loaded, then head to terminal to shower, eat, get provisions, and call Jeff to see what he's doing.

What actually happenned was that I went to drop the load and they tell me they have no idea what delivery it is that I have and to call my dispatcher, which I do but he's busy so during a period of two hours I talk to several different people and they re-set my delivery for the next morning at 0700. Fine. Only they want to know if I can make it to the next appointment I had to which I tell them I cannot as I would need an empty trailer and if I need to look for one, in Chicago, it could take at least two hours and then I'd have to go there and that time is in just over an hour at this point.

So they tell me to hold tight and see what's going on and they send me a message that says to drop the trailer at the chicago terminal. So I'm wondering what about the next load but leave just because the sooner I get there the sooner I can find out what the fuck's going on.

I get there and call my fleet manager who I actually get ahold of. He tells me the next load is not on me anymore and I ask since I'm not on anything now, if I can keep the load I have and deliver it the next morning so I don't have to spend the next 10 hours looking for an empty trailer for whatever load I get next. He said he'll see what he can do.

So I'm in limbo, which I hate because I'm a nervous wreck in situations like that. i can't read, I can't do anything until I know what's going on. I don't like not being in control of what's going on.

We shower, go get groceries, and season two of "Arrested Development." Of course I don't get to do the load so I have to drop that trailer and look for another one, which there isn't.

I let him know and he kindly found one for me at a place 12 miles away. Dice! The other thing is that the next load is at 1100 the next day 12 miles away from the terminal with two pick ups and heading to Oconomowoc, WI. Nice. Everything finally seems to be falling into place.

All this good luck made me forget about Chicago not being signed well and the fuck-head drivers and then the rest of the bad lucks just rolls its way in.

I wake up early the next morning and decide, "Oh, I'll just do a quick run to get the trailer, since it's only 12 miles away, then get back, brush my teeth, eat, and get some coffee, then relax until my runs come.

Of course the 12 miles takes an hour to get to. On top of dealing with the fuck-head Chicago drivers who laws and logic either don't apply or they don't give a fuck.

so I get to the place and there's a sign that says, "Jewel/Osco drivers only. All other drivers use 15th Ave entrance." So I go to 15th avenue and am looking for signs to the place as I didn't have any directions for that one and it's not as if it's just on the side of where I was; it was a few blocks away and you can't see the place from that street.

Of course there are no signs so I have to use my navigational skills to follow in the direction of the place, geographically. I see a bunch of trucks in a line and go there, hoping it's the place because I have no clue, as there are no signs and it's a little off from where it should be, but yet still is in the right possible area.

It ends up being the 15th Avenue entrance so I wait in this long, moving like molasses line, and, like it always happens when I'm in a long, slow moving line, right when I'm about to get to the front, a security car comes up and asks me if I'm picking up an empty trailer. I say yes. He informs me that I'm in the wrong line and I should go to the other entrance. The one I first went to that said it was for Jewel/Osco drivers only. There was no mention of anything like, "Unless you're picking up an empty, then use this entrance."

so I go there and they check me in and send me to another check in like the bureaucratic fucks these places tend to be. After 15 minutes there he tells me where to go on the map I'm holding and says and uses his pen to direct me where to go. The directions are along a red line with an arrow that a fucking four year old, retarded foreigner could've navigated with. Then he says, "If it's empty you can take it. If not, you can't." This pissed me off for two reasons. 1) After an hour and forty-five minutes I may not have an empty. 2) If it's still loaded, why the fuck would I take it? What am I going to do, push all the freight out with my small broom and sneak out?

It was empty and that part turned out fine and so after three hours, I'm back at the terminal, hungry as fuck and needing coffee badly. We get back and head in to get some breakfast. I got a big coffee and a huge breakfast and went back to the truck to map out my run.

The pick-up is 12 miles away and the second one is right down the street. So my new plan is to get the loads and come back to the terminal, shower, and call Jeff to see what he's doing.

I get to the shipper at 1045 for my 1100 appointment. After signing in and waiting 15 minutes for someone to finally acknowledge me, I'm helped. She tells me that the pick-up number I have is for a load that's already being loaded to another driver from another company and that I should call my dispatcher and find out what's happenning.

I call him and he's busy and I can't get through so someone else helps me and tells me he'll call me back. A half hour later I call and he answers again and says that that department must be out to lunch and to wait until after 1200 and call back. I wait until 1230 and call back and get to the department and she acts surprised like this is the first they've heard about this, so I have to explain everything all over again.

She calls the shipper and talks to someone and conference them in and they said, "Go in and talk to Gail. She said they figured out what was going on as soon as you walked out but you never came back in."

This pissed me off. I said, "Are you kidding me? That was over two hours ago and I'm sitting right in front of their door. They couldn't have run out while I was walking out or come out to tell me!!!!..."

They said to go back in and I did and got even more pissed when I found out they only had to load one pallet. This is dumb. My next pick up was for 1300 and it was now 1320 and they closed at 1400. I had to go there and got there at 1430. I was loaded and done by 1400. If someone at the fucking detention center at my company was there and not their whole fucking entourage going to lunch at the same time, some fucker could've told me to go to the second shipper while they figure out what's going on at the other place and it all would've worked out well. Or if some bitch at the first shipper had sense enough to walk outside where I was parked right in front of their windowed door where the other office workers kept coming out to smoke then they could've told me then.

After all this shit, we decided to just get the fuck out of Chicago and battled the holiday traffic/regular chicago traffic/Friday traffic and crawled out way to Wisconsin.

I had a huge doughnut this morning and it was great. I didn't see any eclairs until later. It was in another case. It was $2.50. it was the size of my head, no kidding. I should've gotten it.