Murphy's World

When things go bad, patience is a virtue

Dear Murphy,

I have a Murphy Week to tell you about! It started on a Sunday morning in Eagan, MN. I went to pick up a load at a warehouse, but the trailer I was supposed to get was gone. After sitting around for a couple of hours, dispatch finally got me another load going to Laredo, TX.
     Four hundred miles into the trip the fan hub came loose, sending the fan into the radiator and instantly disabling my truck on the side of I-35. I sat on the shoulder of the highway for five hours before a wrecker showed up to tow me to Kansas City. After a day-and-a-half stay and camping out in the drivers’ lounge, my truck was ready to roll.
     I got a new load from Lawrence, KS going to Indianapolis. Halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis on I-70, it started to rain real hard…outside and inside my truck! Water was coming out of the sunroof and windshields like Niagara Falls! When it stopped raining, I got the truck dried up, and picked up a load heading for Omaha, NE to my company’s main terminal. Only 100 miles outside of Omaha, NE, my air dryer went out! What a week it was for me, but I wouldn’t trade this job for anything else in the world.
     Jon Belk
     Odessa, TX

Dear Jon,
We all know that when it rains, it pours, except, of course, in Murphy’s World. In Murphy’s World, when it rains, it pours all right…outside and sometimes inside the truck cab.
     I’m not sure what’s more frustrating about this job: all the stuff that goes wrong or all the time drivers spend waiting to right all the wrongs. Spending a couple of hours waiting for dispatch to find a load is certainly annoying, but it’s not the end of the world. Spending five hours on the side of the road waiting for a wrecker to show up is a real pain in the neck, but we’ve all been there and done that. Spending a day and a half camping out in the drivers’ lounge waiting for your truck to get fixed is taking the joke a little too far, but I promise you, you weren’t the first one who had to pitch a tent and have some s’mores in the drivers’ lounge, and you won’t be the last.
     All of that time sitting around waiting to get on the road again tests the patience of over-the-road professionals every day, and every day the good ones somehow find a way to cope. Patience, it turns out, really is a virtue…especially if you’re lucky enough to be a truck driver rolling through this little slice of life we like to call Murphy’s World.

Regards,

Murphy and Lucky Dog