Michigan

"...fuck all you posers...and step into a world that you never seen..." - Limp Bizkit, "Gimme the Mic"

Just what is this "world you've never seen" that you speak of? Ahhh, it's the world of SAFE DRIVING! Find out about it!

So it's November of 2003, and I've been running out to Iowa the past couple 2-3 months. But now it's time to "re-bid," a process where the drivers, according to senority, get to choose or "bid on" the route(s) they want. The company does this every six months or so, or when they gain or lose business/stores, etc. It helps to keep the drivers "fresh," (at least in theory). Being towards the bottom of the totem pole, I don't even think I got to bid; I was just basically "stuck" with the leftovers that nobody wanted. Can you guess what that was? Grand Rapids, MI! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure Michigan is a lovely place (I know it is) in summer, anyway, but
here it is, winter approaching, and I'm headed off to "snow country." Not only that, they made me go there twice a week. Two different routes; the first one started Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning, back Thursday morning. The second one was Thursday night/Friday morning, back Saturday morning. I wound up doing both of these routes for a full year! What a pain in the ass!
Why a pain in the ass? Let me explain: my first real "troubles" started when I began the Michigan routes. I recall getting a flat tire on 80/94 near Burns Harbor, IN. Another time (in fact, twice) my air lines sprung a leak, locking up the brakes. The first occasion was around
South Haven, and I recall having to hoof it back towards the exit I had just passed. A friendly motorist stopped to give me a lift back to the gas station, which was a Godsend, because it had just started snowing, and was cold as hell. So I was 2-3 hours late on my route that particular day (oh, joy!). We, as drivers, are basically responsible for "handling" any mechanical problems that arise. The company doesn't really care/want to know. So, you get on the horn with the leasing company (Ryder, in this case), and they send someone out. I recall the guy had to come down from Holland. Then, they take a damn blow-torch to the air lines to warm them up. Same thing happened a few weeks later, but luckily, I had already made it to Grand Rapids. I remember pulling out of my first store, and the rear wheels not turning, just sliding along behind me in the snow. What a lovely feeling! But that's the life of a trucker; shit is going to happen - ya just got to make the best of a bad situation (like the song says).
Anyway, I guess the routes weren't tooo terrible. I was able to get my four (Wed.) or five (Fri.)
stores delivered, and make it to the truckstop within the 14-hour time limit (usually). This is leaving the south burbs at midnite, and getting up to Grand Rapids by what? 4-4:30am (5:30 their time - yes, you had to account for the time change also) So, I'd be done generally by noon
Central/1:00pm Eastern, take my 10-hour rest, then do the remaining 3 stops overnight, after the stores closed. We always had keys, and all the Grand Rapids stores were part of the same franchise, I believe. So the ordering "procedures," if you will, were pretty much uniform: in other words, they all got the same shit, just some more than others, depending on the volume of business.
But, man, they did like to order heavy. I remember having 40K PLUS loads going up there. And if you are over gross, Michigan is not the state you wanna be going through. The scales would invariably be open, and they don't have pre-pass, so it's basically praying time. Yes, you could stop at one of the many truckstops in Indiana, scale your load for 10-11 dollars, and hope you don't have to move the tandems. I recall having to slide those fuckers in the snowy parking lot of one truckstop, and, for the life of me could not get 'em to budge. The wheels just slid back and forth. And with the old-ass, rusted-out piece-of-shit trailers we were pulling...Look, I could talk all day about moving your tandems, but I'm not going to, because, first of all, there's lots of drivers more experienced than I, so I'm not saying anything new, or that they haven't already experienced. Second, after dicking around, wasting time on trying to get the weight just right (and failing) I would just give up, and jump on the toll road. That was the failsafe: you would take 80/94 to 65 north towards Gary, then jump on 90 east (Indiana toll road), and take that all the way out to South Bend. The toll was only like 7-8 bucks, if I remember correctly, which is less than the cost to weigh, and you didn't have to deal with the bullshit, ya know? Then you'd take U.S. 31 north, which basically merges right back onto 94 around Benton Harbor, and you've bypassed the New Buffalo scales. I figured it was about 30 minutes longer that way, but sooooo worth it to avoid the headaches. Since I haven't been back in a couple years, I wonder if they've figured it out (MI state police). Dunno. Don't care. Coming back was a snap (except for the lake-effect snowstorms - by the time you hit, say, Gary, you're OK) because you're empty, so no worries.
But the volume of product I had to deliver became the real issue. My back literally took a pounding, especially in the summer months. Why people eat more pizza in summer is anybody's guess, but I was paying the price big time. I would get to the truckstop, have a bite and just
fucking collapse. I think it was about this time I discovered those back heat wraps (I swear by those things! - what a livesaver!) As the months went by, though, I became more and more disillusioned. Summer 2004 has passed, and now winter is fast approaching. What to do?
Did I really want to go through that shit all over again? Like I said, I don't have anything against Michigan personally (although my theory is that, because Detroit is the "Motor City," people think they can drive like NASCAR drivers), but I was just getting more and more fed up with each passing week. Sooooooo...

More soon,


Steve