The Laughing Wolf

Glad To Be Safely Back

I can’t go into details, but several very nice things have happened for me in the last week. Yesterday morning saw what may be the best thing yet transpire, and it resulted in my doing a Snoopy-style happy dance here in the temporary lair, possibly to the dismay of my downstairs neighbor. One of the good things going on, however, nearly turned yesterday into a very bad thing because of screw-ups on the part of others.

There is paperwork involved with everything, and for one of the good things going on someone needed to send me papers and they did so without checking where they needed to be sent. The papers were sent to Huntsville, and I was told that they were sent FedEx. Bleep. I never filed a change of address with them, and it is possible that the package may just languish on the doorstep there. So, yesterday afternoon I found myself making the 3.5 hour drive over to Huntsville to retrieve the very important package.

The drive over was not too bad, but the weather was indeed getting interesting. I made it in, took care of a couple of minor errands, and went to pick up the package. Having previously called the apartment office and making sure they would still sign for me, I went straight there. No package. I go and check, nothing on the door. Very Interesting. So, I call the person who sent it, check again, and ask for the FedEx tracking number. I get the number, and drive over to the FedEx office. Nothing. It is not a FedEx tracking number.

I call the person back, and get the same thing: FedEx. I ask them to look at the receipt again, and verify that it is FedEx and not Express Mail. Ooops. Their bad, it is Express Mail – and a quick check shows it has indeed been forwarded to the temporary lair. If you are visualizing me beating my head on the steering wheel at this point, you are not far off. A short time later, I start the 3.5 hour drive back.

This is where it truly got interesting. Just south of Chattanooga, I hit a heavy storm. It is raining such that anyone with half a brain has had to slow and move toward the right. Really smart people have pulled to the side, and most of us have flashers on. The lightning is intense, and I watched more than one bolt hitting close by last for what seemed like seconds, and pulse as it did so. While I could not spare time to observe, I think that one object hit by such a bolt is not there anymore and I sincerely hope that was a tree appearing to disintegrate even as the overpressure rocked Pups, my car.

I am also glad that I had said a hurried goodbye to a hands-free phone conversation with a friend a few minutes earlier as things started to get bad, for a number of reasons. What happened next caused me to loose my religion and use language and gestures I don’t normally use.

In the middle of the worst of it, some asshole starts tailgating me. Turns out it is a semi, the first of about 10 that proceeded to terrorize traffic by insisting on doing 60-70 when everyone else was doing good to do 45. These trucks, at least one of which appeared to have no tag light and in rain so thick I literally could not read anything on cabs or trailers for the driving rain, forced people over (I had to make one emergency lane change myself because the driver behind refused to move to the empty lane(s), but just had to go up the middle of the slow lanes) and swerved into every lane (far left was open) including the emergency lanes in their insane quest for speed.

Now, I expect some idiot in a 4-wheel vehicle to try something that stupid. In fact, I refer to it as Darwin-in-action/chlorine-in-the-genepool and usually try to let them by and hang back to watch them lose it. They can be avoided and usually only manage to shuffle themselves or their vehicle from this mortal coil. A semi, however, can and will take out others with distressing regularity and is a heck of a lot harder to avoid. A group of such trucks is even harder to avoid. These idiots were endangering everyone else, including fellow truckers who appeared less than happy with them, by their reckless actions.

I did survive, and I did catch up with one of the offenders later. This truck had slowed down dramatically, and was weaving very badly. Do I suspect impairment? You betcha. Was there much I could do? Nope, not under the circumstances (no information on the cab, and impossible to read or find the tag on the flatbed), and I do hope that the cops did find him and have a little talk and test. The other storms I hit were anti-climactic after that first one.

To say that I am less than amused is mild right now. Having to waste 8-plus hours of what may be one of the best days of my life on a wild goose chase because someone was sloppy as hell with their information would not put a damper on the day. Wasting $20-$50 dollars on gas, food, water, etc. would not and did not put a damper on the day. Nearly having my life wasted because of idiots in the midst of a bad storm, on a trip I did not need to make, does indeed piss me off. Someone being incredibly and inexcusably sloppy in their information to me is bad enough, but the outright criminal stupidity of that one group of semi drivers was way above and beyond. Jerks like that are why accident statistics are so high, and why the 90-plus percent of good semi-drivers get a bad rap. Now, that all together did make for a less-than-fun interesting time.

I will celebrate yesterday for the morning, and for the fact that I did make it back here alive. It would have been all too ironic had I been killed last night by the stupidity of two very different groups/people after the start to the day. As for me, I am going to take today to go do some things I need to do and want to do. I will celebrate the outstanding bookends of the day, and try to forget the unnecessary terror that filled a brief slice in between.

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