BLOWN AWAY
Just got back from Florida. I went down to bring generators and plywood to friends and family. That was a serious clusterfuck.
I went there with my friend John and we had to revise our departure time like 6 times and ended up leaving Saturday evening rather than Friday morning--the hurricane kept slowing down and getting bigger. We drove down in his Freghtliner Sprinter truck and towed a utility trailer.
We stopped in Virginia and bought plywood. After we loaded up, tied down, and drove away, we saw like 4 people beating the shit out of some guy and his car with baseball bats right in the middle of the street at a stop light. We decided not to hang out and watch the action being as how we had so much cargo. We drove off, refueled, and came back. Everybody left and not a single cop showed up. Odd.
At one point, we waited on the Georgia/Florida border for hours waiting for the storm to move far enough inland for us to continue south. We watched it on the big screen TV at the truck stop and it was covering the ENTIRE state of Florida from Miami to Jacksonville. Holy shit. We waited until it started getting close to Orlando and made our move. We were towing a trailer with 50 sheets of 1/2" CDX plywood, 20 5 gal. cans of gasoline, and 2 cans of diesel. Inside the truck we had 16 generators loaded in, 2 chainsaws, and all the tools we might need to patch up houses, hook up generators to electrical panels, etc.
So, here I am, on my birthday, thinking it may be my last. I'm driving a FUCKING BOMB through a hurricane. What a dumb shit I am. We did stop right after midnight at a Waffle House and the large black woman working as a line cook sang me the greatest and most soulful rendition of "Happy Birthday" I have ever heard. I was definitely "wowed." Why she is working as a death shift line cook I can't say, but I'm glad she was doing it that night.
After we got the generators distributed, the owner of the house we brought the plywood down for decided he didn't want to board it up. We told him he was FUCKING INSANE being as how there was another 'cane coming, but what the hell. He made it though this one with no windows busted. So, there we are, in a FUCKING WAR ZONE trying to make a RETURN of 50 sheets of plywood to Home Depot. Mind you, this load retails for like $1000. We probably could have sold it on the street for 3 or 4 times that. Why? Because there is no more fucking plywood in all of Florida, that's why.
Do the people working at Home Depot lift me up on their shoulders and parade me around the store, anouncing my name on the loudspeaker, calling me the Triuphant Bringer of Bountiful Plywood, Conqueror of The Storm? No, they just give me a bunch of shit and send me from person to person to person before I finally get fed up enough that I keep asking for people's bosses until finally I get the person who must be the head manager of the store to realize that I have exactly what she needs, and she marches out, verifys the wood is good (we encapsulated it in rain tarps for the trip), takes my receipt, elbows everybody else out of the return line, makes the computer do its thing, and starts trying to get her people out there with a forklift. They made the first delivery directly off of our truck. By the time we had it unloaded, she had already sold half of it.
On the way back I stopped in to see my parents, sister, and nieces and nephew. We also stopped to see John's parents.
Do I get to rest after this grand sleep deprivation experiment? No, I get to cater my GF's party. At least I like to cook.
OK, enough of that epic story. Thanks for all the B-Day greetings!
Just got back from Florida. I went down to bring generators and plywood to friends and family. That was a serious clusterfuck.
I went there with my friend John and we had to revise our departure time like 6 times and ended up leaving Saturday evening rather than Friday morning--the hurricane kept slowing down and getting bigger. We drove down in his Freghtliner Sprinter truck and towed a utility trailer.
We stopped in Virginia and bought plywood. After we loaded up, tied down, and drove away, we saw like 4 people beating the shit out of some guy and his car with baseball bats right in the middle of the street at a stop light. We decided not to hang out and watch the action being as how we had so much cargo. We drove off, refueled, and came back. Everybody left and not a single cop showed up. Odd.
At one point, we waited on the Georgia/Florida border for hours waiting for the storm to move far enough inland for us to continue south. We watched it on the big screen TV at the truck stop and it was covering the ENTIRE state of Florida from Miami to Jacksonville. Holy shit. We waited until it started getting close to Orlando and made our move. We were towing a trailer with 50 sheets of 1/2" CDX plywood, 20 5 gal. cans of gasoline, and 2 cans of diesel. Inside the truck we had 16 generators loaded in, 2 chainsaws, and all the tools we might need to patch up houses, hook up generators to electrical panels, etc.
So, here I am, on my birthday, thinking it may be my last. I'm driving a FUCKING BOMB through a hurricane. What a dumb shit I am. We did stop right after midnight at a Waffle House and the large black woman working as a line cook sang me the greatest and most soulful rendition of "Happy Birthday" I have ever heard. I was definitely "wowed." Why she is working as a death shift line cook I can't say, but I'm glad she was doing it that night.
After we got the generators distributed, the owner of the house we brought the plywood down for decided he didn't want to board it up. We told him he was FUCKING INSANE being as how there was another 'cane coming, but what the hell. He made it though this one with no windows busted. So, there we are, in a FUCKING WAR ZONE trying to make a RETURN of 50 sheets of plywood to Home Depot. Mind you, this load retails for like $1000. We probably could have sold it on the street for 3 or 4 times that. Why? Because there is no more fucking plywood in all of Florida, that's why.
Do the people working at Home Depot lift me up on their shoulders and parade me around the store, anouncing my name on the loudspeaker, calling me the Triuphant Bringer of Bountiful Plywood, Conqueror of The Storm? No, they just give me a bunch of shit and send me from person to person to person before I finally get fed up enough that I keep asking for people's bosses until finally I get the person who must be the head manager of the store to realize that I have exactly what she needs, and she marches out, verifys the wood is good (we encapsulated it in rain tarps for the trip), takes my receipt, elbows everybody else out of the return line, makes the computer do its thing, and starts trying to get her people out there with a forklift. They made the first delivery directly off of our truck. By the time we had it unloaded, she had already sold half of it.
On the way back I stopped in to see my parents, sister, and nieces and nephew. We also stopped to see John's parents.
Do I get to rest after this grand sleep deprivation experiment? No, I get to cater my GF's party. At least I like to cook.
OK, enough of that epic story. Thanks for all the B-Day greetings!
VIEW 21 of 21 COMMENTS
godsmoker:
Where you be? 
mercie:
wow, i know someone who doesn't update anymore... 