When I had delivered the Indianapolis fire truck to Oshkosh yesterday my dispatcher asked me to take a priority dispatch. My choice of course. The same severe storms that had shut me down on the way up had done a lot of damage in the St. Louis area and several thousand people were without power. He wanted me to pick up a load of generators and get them down there over night.
Normally I wouldn't accept such a rush dispatch but as there were a lot of people down there who were in trouble I agreed to take it. The load paid very little but under the circumstances the pay was irrelevent. I was one of several trucks running the generators down there to get some of the important things like grocery stores and gas stations powered up.
I made the run, delivered the generators this morning, and then hauled butt to O'Hare airport in Chicago to pick up a truck coming back up to Wisconsin. I had to make the Chicago pick up before the maintenance people went home at 3:00. Talk about a tight schedule! I didn't have time to stop and eat last night or at any point during the day today.
I made it to Chicago and pulled into the airport maintenance facility at 2:15. Cutting it close, but I made it. Naturally it was pouring down rain at that point so I got nice and soaked while loading and chaining down the truck. Yuk.
When I got back in the truck Socrates jumped on me and saw that I was soaked. He looked down at the floor where the forbidden pedals are and back up at me like "ok, where did you go that you weren't supposed to?" It was hilarious and made getting soaked almost worth it. I fought my way out of Chicago and stopped here just South of Milwaukee to get some food into my desperately empty stomach. I feel much better now and am now going to do the remaining hour and a half to the yard.
At this point I'm exhausted and looking forward to a nice cold beer or three and a good night's sleep.