Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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There are some drivers for whom you can never drive fast enough. Every Sunday, I have four Sunday customers down Cedar Run Road; the surface is worse than any washboard you can imagine. I'm not sure why this road gets so bad, but it is speckled with horse farms and larger estates with quite a few acres, possibly explaining why the road has never been paved. Not only are there not enough people per capita to pave the road, but the residents don't want people flying down this back country road when at any given time, there could be equestrians sharing the road. The lacking quality of the road surface really doesn't seem to phase most people that get behind me on a Sunday morning. I drive a pick-up truck with an empty bed, which, on a road like that, is rather like driving on large billiard balls. The wise cracker behind me is surely burning his lips on my tailpipe, since I can't usually even see the hood of the car, and is swerving from side to side as if to intimidate me to pull aside and let him pass. The speed limit is 25 mph. I am usually going 35mph, and that's about all I can handle and still keep the truck steady. One morning, a red SUV came barrelling down behind me. He was swerving and waving his arms in the air out the window, like many of the nuts I have experienced in the past. I hit the brakes, but did not really expect the truck to slide almost sideways, and obviously, neither did he. However, the fellow behind the wheel, nearly in his fifties, actually was able to maintain more control over his shoebox on wheels, than I was able to maintain with my empty empty truck. I pulled aside, and as he came to a stop beside me, I screamed, "It's twenty five miles per hour, and I'm already ten miles over~!!". He held up his hand to stop me, and forced a really big, friendly grin. "No, No..." he stutterd. "I'm trying to stop you from leaving us a paper. I've called the Trib a number of times, but they don't seem to be passing the message through to you. We have never paid for a paper, I don't know who's paper we're getting, but we really don't have time to read it, and it would be really great if you could stop leaving one for us." With my left elbow resting on the top of the door where the window retracts, I slammed my head into my hand. I looked back up at him and said, "I'm SOOOOO, so terribly sorry. Every week, some young hot-shot flies down this road behind me, swerving back and forth like you did, trying to get me to go faster. If I speed up any at all with an empty truck, I'll lose control. I can't appologize enough for stopping suddenly in front of you and screaming, I guess." He was so unusually friendly. He said, "I know - we see people flying low on this road all of the time, and we can't figure out why there aren't more accidents here. ... I didn't mean to upset you, or make you nervous, but this was the first week I actually saw you throw the paper and figured I had a chance to catch you this time." Again, I appologized and said that Sundays were always a long, tiring day, and I was already over an hour late this week, so I guessed I was a bit on edge. Poor guy... So, the next time someone swerves in and out of his lane behind you, waving his arms frantically, they might really want or need something serious, and not just be looking to "blow your doors off." This was not my MOST embarrassing moment, but it sure was up there in the top ten! |