Patrick Hasler

This is not so much old as new, amusing things that have happened over the past few weeks on the road

Weds before Thanksgiving we all want to get home and I am no different. I was in Yonkers sugar refinery and before I could leave to come home and after loading my own tank I had to get someone elses tank loaded, the appointment times were at 09.00 and 16.00 ! damm sure I wasn't gonna be there that late so after a word with the tank wash guy and the loaders, who all seem to like me I managed to get my own ltrailer washed and loaded at 3.00am and picked uo the other guys trailer to load, in that time about 10 tanks had been washed before I got the second trailer washed and loaded.
The tank wash consists of an overhead device that the wash guy lowers into the open tank from a winch next to an overhead walkway. At the bottom of the device is a very expensive spinning thing, by expensive I mean SIX F**KIN GRAND !!! ... this thing is about 18 inches long, is about 20lbs and has very intricate gadgets that spin in all directions forcing very hot high pressure water that sterilise the tank so you would think the guy on the walkway would notice if such an item was missing ! .... Not so ! .... At 0600am I was being loaded alongside the other English driver and just as the trailers were sealed and we got our paperwork the phone in the office rang and the supervisor answered it, I heard him say "What bit of metal ? .. in which trailer ?" and he shot out of the room.
My mate and I drove out to the scale house and noticed the supervisor and others all examining and truck tank, I should have driven out there and then but hunger forced me to park and visit the canteen ..... BIG MISTAKE ! On return to my truck I was asked to get the second trailer, return to the loading area and pump the entire contents back into the tanks there, my tank was then fully examined to try and find the missing object, which it truned out was not just a bit of metal but the entire spinning thingy, it wasn't there. I reloaded the trailer, dropped it, picked up the first one and scarpered, I found out by phone that they drained about 6 trailers looking for the missing thingy.
This monday as I returned to Yonkers with the empty trailer (after a 4 day rest for turkey day & dekivering the load) I was just about to get the tank washed and asked the more intelignet wash guy if the thing had been found ?... It hadn't ! "Before you lower the wash in lets look in this trailer and check" I said,
"Ok .... but yours was loaded way too early" he said.
We opened the rear plug, shone a torch inside and low and behold there the f**kin spinning thingy was ! which meant the other wash guy had not nioticed the lissing $6K object had been missing for 5 hours !!!
Therewas great relief all around as the thought of the bill for $6K not coming in after all .... Poor bloke got suspended though

Thursday night I had to park at the Petro in Bordentown NJ for the night and listen to some of the bullshit you hear in places like that. One guy was running his mouth on the CB about new rukes ciming into force for drivers next month "They say the hours are dropping from 11 hours driving to 10 hours driving" he said
"Who saud" I asked.
"They do"
"Who exactly is they then mate ? I mean did the DOT call your house and tell you this ?"
"No but they say it's true"
"Who does ?"
"They do"
F**kin idiot !

In a truck about 4 sapces from me was a woman driver who lokked like she had just eaten a raw onion, If my dog was that ugly I would shave it ass and make it walk backwards. About 11.00 pm she sat in the cab calling for anyone who wanted to see her naked UGGH ! ... as she walked from her cab she looked like six dogs fighting in a sack.

I left the Petro Friday morning headung for Yonkers to collect my load for next week and got into another CB conversation with some geyser from North Carolina, he told me about his nice friendly little town and his family... It seems his 16 year old son was experimenting with smoking grass the previous week, got so high he actually phoned the cops and reported himself
I laughed so hard I hurt.
"It ain't funny" said the guy.
"Are you kiddin me ?" I said "Is he Irish ?"

Anyway ... we changed the topic because I couldn't talk without laughing and vefore we parted he said "They call me High Roller"
"Who calls you high roller ?" I asked.
"They do"
I'm now thinking I don't know who 'THEY' are but they seem well informed.
"What do they call you ?" he asked.
"What do who call me ?"
"They"
"Who the f**k are they ?"
"You friends"
"They don't call me anything .... they like me"

After much thought and consideration I now realise that it's my friends who actually now and give out all this information to everyone, from DOT regulations to how long the line of traffic is at the George Washington Bridge, because as I travelled north some guy said he ahd heard that there was a 5 mile line to cross it.
"Where did you gear that ?" I asked.

You can guess the answer ........ THEY DID