Not a boating or fishing story but,
Not a boating or fishing story but,
Thursday my boss asked me to run bobtail up to St. Louis, my normal run minus the trailer, to pick up a new trailer for Tindle Mills. He gives me very bad directions to the sign shop that has put the decals on the trailer, and I do as he asks.
Once finding the sign shop, I hook up to the trailer and notice a Starbucks and a Crispy Cream near, so I walk over and get my breakfast as it is just now 8 AM and I am hungry.
Once back into the truck with the new 48 foot Hopper grain trailer, and it's brand new decals, a very large cow eating grass, and a very large plate with a steaming thick cut steak all in full color with the words "Beef" (top left) "It's whats for dinner" (bottom right near the plate). Now this section of St Louis is known for it's very narrow two lane streets and I was warned about the tight turns before leaving, of which I am now checking out. As I pull out of the drive I find what I was not warned of.
Five mid-twenties ladies all standing on the corner, three with signs, waving at passing traffic. As I pull up to the right hand turn where they are located, I can read only one sign. "Honk if your against animal cruelty."
In my mind I am thinking, "unless your a serial killer in trainer, no one like to be cruel to animals" so I give a little air to the 18 inch air horns located on the roof of my truck. They now turn to me, jumping and waving and cheering me on, giving me the "blow the air horn signal" so I let her blast away which brings on more cheers and waves.
Having my steering wheel in my left hand, and my Starbucks coffee in my right, I raise the cup and wave back. Suddenly their smiles and cheers fade to angry faces and shouts of obscenities. What on earth could I have done to make this once joyful moment into a rude demonstration. As they continue yelling filth and flarn, shaking their signs at me, they move closer to my rig. One points at my trailer and gasps as if she is about to faint, but then leaps on to my passenger side steps, as I read one of the other signs, "Starbucks supports animals cruelty"
Siting on a two lane road, trying to make a right turn onto a two lane road with 5 young ladies now beating the side of my truck and trailer and one standing on my steps I have entered the most embarrassing moments in my life. All the while wondering what on earth could Starbucks possible do to be cruel to animals.
Are they stirring the lattes with a dog femur? Will I find a cat head in the bottom of my cup? Oh my, please tell me they are not testing coffee temperatures on monkeys, as the vision of a room full of moneys comes to mind and a Starbucks R&D guy walks in and throws 107 degree coffee on them to see if it's too hot. "Hey Fred, 107 seems to be a little warm, drop it down to 105."
At this point I see my exit is now blocked by the ladies moving to the front of my rig minus the one now beating on my window. I hit the window switch to ask the girl to please get off my rig. (what you may not know is Peterbuilts have an air controlled window and there is no "just cracking it" you hit the switch, it drops fully) She leans inside the cab and grabs my coffee, I grab my air blow gun, (used to blow dust out of the cab and off my clothes) and point it at her. She grips the coffee cup too tightly and the lid pops off exposing the whipped cream and I give it a blast of air blowing whipped cream not only all over the inside of my truck but also in her face and hair. To which she falls back off the truck like she has been shot, light is green, I blow the air horn again and roll forward pushing the other four out of my way and make my right turn dragging the trailer well over the curb forcing them to run even further into the parking lot, dropping their signs. One of which I run over and it lodges between the duel tires on the trailer, flipping over and over again inside the wheels as I roll away.
I go about 4-5 blocks before I stop on the edge of the road to remove the sign from my rear axle. A guy pulls cross ways in front of me, comes back to where I am removing the the sign, and begins his verbal attack. "You stupid son bleeeep, bleeeeep bleeep. I saw you trying to run over those ladies, I should kick you f bleeeeeep, bleeeeeeep, you dumb f bleeeeeeeep I'm gonna call the Go Bleeeeeep blllleeeeeep cops and have you fubleeeeeep asbleeeeep arrested"
I throw the sign to the curb, get back in my truck, back away from him and head to the flour mills to pick up my load where I find a line of trucks in front of me and now know that my otherwise good day has turned into a longer one sitting in line with coffee spilled all over the inside of my truck.
While waiting in line to get loaded, I hear on the FM radio that the police are looking for a Semi Truck and trailer that took off from an otherwise peaceful demonstration after he attacked five ladies and drove over their signs.
OH GREAT A MAN HUNT...
The next hour's newscast comes on, and they report that the truck driver is still at large but this time they give a description of me and the truck. Now I figure its time to call the police and tell my side of the story. I tell them I am sitting in a very long line, but when I get loaded I'll come down and give my statement. The guy on the phone passes me over to a lady detective, and I explain my plans again. She tells me her name and I am to ask for her when I get there.
So I get loaded, go to the police station, ask for her, she takes me to a interviewing room, and I fill out my statement. When she returns she sits down and apologizes for having to leave and explains she is trying to get over a chest cold.
She sits back into her chair and reads my statement as I sit quietly watching her face and the changes in expression and she goes through it. At times I can tell she is working very hard to hold back the laughs which is followed by couchs which sound like each cough loosens phlegm and I am wondering if I should duck or something.
AS she gets to the whipped cream part of the story she starts to read aloud and starts laughing out load stating something about "I knew cows did not have sperm" I ask, "Huh" and she goes into the statement of the girl telling her I threw Cow Sperm on her to which I loose it and tears run as I am laughing so hard. She started to cough and choke and her own laughs and grabs for some type of inhaler, which she drops and sharply bending to pick it up, she hits her head on the desk and seems to have knocked herself out as she fell to the floor. I assume she is out as her laughs have stopped, so I goet up, knee over her at the exact moment the door flings open and two male cops grab me trowing me to the floor and one pulls his tonk, and gives me a sharp tonk in the neck shoulder area.
The next few minutes are a little blur as you can imagine, but when she comes to, she explains to them I did nothing to her, and after hearing my statement, I was being released, while all statements will be turned over to the DA and she can decide the outcome further.
As I go outside to my truck I find a parking ticket under the wiper, stating some city ord about commercial vehicles being parked in residential areas, which I promptly take back inside to see why I was told I could bring the truck and trailer down there in the first place if it was in fact against the law.
The guy said it's a two hour time limit, and I explain I have only been here for about 45 min to one hour. He replied, no, I wrote the ticket because I saw the chalk on your tire, they mark them every other hour, so you had to have been here longer than one hour."
I take my ticket back to the truck to look for chalk and find paint on the rear tire from the sign I ran over marking the sidewall.
In an attempt to make a long story even longer, I left for St Louis yesterday at 5 AM, I just got back and 8 AM today to unload, and have to go back up there today to reload my Friday load. Would anyone like to go with me in case I need bailed out of jail?
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How about we have an iboats contest?
