2003aug08. So the Budget moving truck was supposed to be ready by 9am and when we went to pick up the guy at the counter said they didn’t know where the truck was and that they would find it and call us. And it was supposed to be returned the previous day. So we’ve rented a renegade truck. Then we call back at noon and they've found the truck they just need one or two hours to inspect the truck and they will call us back. So at 3pm we call again and the truck had been ready for an hour and a half and they were very busy so they could not call us. And we get there and some people who are speaking French are trying to rent a car and I’m making “no no no” faces at them when the rental guy is looking away, because I’m not going to screw myself out of a rental truck when we’re supposed to be out of the apartment in nine hours. I don’t know how these people ended up there, it was in the middle of a no-action sleepy business community, someone must have really hated them to drop them off there. Anyway, we get the truck and we pack. We pack the truck to the top. It is full of our crap and there’s really too much of it, it’s embarassing me more and more with every load hand-carted outside. The maximum load of this truck is four tons of crap, I have a funny feeling that we’re very close to this limit (one Budget pamphlet, or perhaps it was the driver’s manual, recommends you take your truck to a weigh station to see if you are overweight – yes, it’s overweight, I'll just go rent a bigger truck and move everything again, no problem). This is a fifteen-foot truck. This takes approximately twelve hours. During this time the following is noted: Budget neglected to give us a hand-truck as requested. Budget neglected to clean out the ashtrays – not that I would care, but then, if you return a truck in such a state, you are penalized various dollars. Budget neglected to provide for us something called a “back license plate” which to my understanding is required in the United States and probably something Budget would notice during their 1.5 hour inspection of the truck. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking. Then there is driving, escaping from California at 4am. A boatload of driving. During this time the girlfriend was the macho trucker and I was the wimp car driver guy. The girlfriend discovers the exciting “exhaust brake” switch which is activated by pulling on the right-hand steering column stalk – you know, just like activating the windshield wipers on 90% of current model cars. The exhaust brake, when activated, starts getting pissed off for various mechanical reasons I still don’t understand – not that I know what the fuck “exhaust brake” means – and the truck begins to emanate a screechy-ass beeping noise that fills the cab and causes anyone with any common sense to pull over.
We are pulled over in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night. That would be the second night. We didn’t stop at a motel or anything, we just took powernaps that apparently worked for the girlfriend but I was sort of delirious the whole time after packing. Always the best state of mind to be in while driving a car. “Look, purple zebras, floating on my windshield.”
First, there is no indication that the exhaust brake is “on” or “off.” No light tells you this, like for example, when you turn on the brights. Then, when the truck started beeping, a companion light was supposed to turn on that said something like “Exhaust Brake is Mad, Turn It Off” but there was no such light as well. I don’t know how we figured it out since we had been working at this moving thing for about 32 hours at that point. Calls to Budget were involved, and miracles of miracles, the driver’s manual was in the glove compartment.
A few hours later, we took another powernap in a trucker’s parking lot in a trucker’s Freeway Exit Town That Is Exactly The Same As Every Other Freeway Exit Town. This one had a DQ/gas station and there was a sign on the door that warned people that nuts were being processed on-site, so I knew we were still in California at that point.
So I’m in the middle of my powernap, and because the rest of the car is packed to the gills with Sensitive Technology from the year 1992, I’m forced to powernap by leaning my head on the door of the car. With a towel inbetwixt. And then for some reason I got up, slowly, very, very, very groggily. And I turned to the left, and there’s this extremely bright light shining in my face. And a voice.
“Hey there! You just taking a little rest there?”
And at this point, we’re up to about 35 hours of mostly non-sleep, so when people disturb my powernapping, I’m no longer pissed off, I’m completely off the rails lost.
I was pretty sure, given the implied hospitality behind the remark, the bright light, and my sleep deprivation that I was talking to a miner.
So I’ve got to answer our little spelunking friend. And in my brain, I’m composing a reply like “Why yes, yes we are, Sir Miner. As an aside, your light is certainly not assisting me in this task.” But this is what I said.
“Wu?”
I couldn’t even finish my non-grammatical reply, that’s how bad off I was. Then, the light had more questions.
“So you’re travelling with your friends up there in the truck?”
“Ye.”
Then there was another question I can’t remember, followed by another “ye” and some sort of sign-off with another “ye” and the police car rolled away. Funny, he didn’t seem to bother the truckers.
After that, the girlfriend and I split up so I could tear-ass to the new digs before massive paralysis shut my withered old butt down.
At the old place, we had to contend with the noises of Highway 101, various low-flying television and government aircraft, small-penised men with large after-market car mufflers, the pre-divorce/pre-restaining order verbal dances of neighbors, and the cotton candy man, though I liked the cotton candy man. “COTTON CANDY! COTTON CANDY!” The cotton candy man was all Heisenberg and shit, you could see him, or hear him, but you would never see him yell “COTTON CANDY!” I should have bought some cotton candy from him, even though I do not like cotton candy. Anyway, at the new place, I don’t mind any of the “noises” which consists of coyotes, birds, lizards, burros, cows, chickens, and roosters, the latter owned by the neighbors over yonder. I’ve named one of the roosters “Sir Hides-A-Lot” because every single time I look over there, he’s running from the coop entrance to the back of the coop. It’s the exact same, every time, like a film loop. And that whole morning crowing thing is bullcakies – roosters crow whenever they damn well want to and good for them. So far, I’m 3 for 3 on beating them up in the morning. I mean, getting up before they crow, not actually physically punching them out. That was more for the Honda muffler crowd. Oh, I forgot one thing. Here in the desert, it’s very unlikely that I will see a white Mercedes stretch limo (with gold trim, duh) pull right up next to my window while the passenger engages in a pathetic round of verbal jabs at 2am with one of the apartment dwellers next door, and then he signals to the driver to dramatically drive away while he’s still swearing but the driveway is very small so he has to back the limo up slowly, totally blind so the passenger is like “YEAH AND YOU FUCKING SUCK AND --- no, you’re good, okay a little to the left YOU PRICK ASSH --- no, not you, keep going, you’re doing good ... ” and then they get on the street, finally, and peel out with a dramatic flourish into their Total Drug Future 2017. Gonna miss that.