(Hey guys! It’s Memoir Monday! Everyone should know what to do, just steal my little button code down there, then paste it onto the Edit HTML section on your post. Type up a memoir, spank yourself a little, and call it a win! The only rule? It must be true. So go on! Get you some!)
Some of you are new here. You may not have any idea what a Memoir Monday is. First of all, I want to welcome you to my little slice of the internets. It’s not much, but with 89 followers now, it’s proof that I am a hero.
I’m also very very sick. I have been all weekend. I apologize for not being around to leave my little doses of smart assiness on your blog posts, but I think I am dying. It’s ridiculous.
So those are my excuses. On with the memoirs!
I have worked a lot of jobs.
I’ve been a cart pusher, an electronics guy, a cashier, a shoe salesman, a jailer, a sub/lackey, a cell phone guy, a vacuum salesman, and a delivery driver for a carpet supply place, just to name a few.
The following story is what can happen when you underestimate the strength of good old fashioned plywood. You know the stuff. You’ve probably had something made out of it before, and it broke, and you got wicked pissed and swore you’d never buy/use it again.
It almost killed me.
I was driving to our head offices in OKC from Tulsa. I was driving a delivery truck that looked almost exactly like this:
In case you’ve never driven one of these, let me give you some details about them.
1. The cab weighs however much you weigh, plus 8 pounds.
2. If you don’t stack weight in the back properly, you can essentially hit a good bump and ride a wheelie for 2 or 3 miles before you either go over backwards, or put the front tires down right again.
3. They have a governor that kicks in at 80 MPH.
4. The get up and go on these vehicles is comparable to a turtle that has just had an all he can eat lettuce and carrot buffet.
5. Plywood can totally kick its ass.
I was tooling along on I-35 at about 70 MPH when I noticed someone pulling into my lane. They had a trailer on the back of their truck, and a sticker on the back windshield that said something about Jesus and Mary in the Espanol. Yeah. Mexicans.
I am not a racist person. But it has always been my opinion that if you cannot read the road signs, or the instructions on a box of tie downs, you should not be allowed to pull a trailer full of construction materials on a crowded interstate. That’s just me though. I don’t know about y’all.
I-35 is a 3 lane road.
They pulled into my lane, and I notice something in the back of the trailer flopping around. I paid little attention. I should have paid much.
As I was talking on the phone with The Missus, a piece of plywood comes shooting out of the back of the trailer, and flies about 35 feet up in the air. It went out of my range of viewing, that’s how high. I had to lean forward to get a look at it, just hanging up in the air.
“Hmm. Plywood?”
“What?”
I looked in my left mirror. I looked in my right. Cars in both lanes.
I had to make a decision. I could cut into either lane, cause a wreck, and maybe cost someone their life; or I could take one for the team.
I took one for the team. And geez…it was a doozy.
I had time to brake a little bit, but I still hit this thing going about 65 MPH.
If it had hit me flat, it might not have even been that big of a deal. But no.
It hit me corner on, right through the windshield. The point came about 3 inches from my eye, and I was immediately sprayed with safety glass. It cut up my arms, and it would have probably gotten my eyes too if I hadn’t been wearing sunglasses.
My phone flew out of my hand, or maybe I threw it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been talking on it. All I know is, The Missus was pretty much halfway to OKC in the 35 seconds that all this took place.
It’s a 150 mile trip.
Have I mentioned before that I love my wife?
I don’t know how I managed to make it to the side of the road without killing someone else, but I did.
It was pretty much the worst time that I’ve ever had in a delivery truck. The wood hit it so hard that it actually TWISTED the frame of the truck. They had to total it.
So the next time you think, “Damn plywood, it’s not worth anything.” Remember this.
Chapas de madera va a destruir su camión.
Or, in English, “Plywood will destroy your truck.”
Oh yeah. Did they stop to see if I was okay, or did they just drive on like they hadn’t noticed a 6×10 piece of wood chips glued together fly out of their trailer and almost kill a man?
I’ll let you guess.
For those of you that are new, welcome to Memoir Monday.
Other “Plywood Free” walks down the Memory I-35 today: (Go Read Them!)
Daffy’s Memoir Monday – That’s Smart.