Here’s what’s happened to me in the past 24 hours…
I stopped by my parents house on the way home from work yesterday to pick up my anvil…the anvil weighs 360 lbs, and it took me and my dad a lot of effort to get it in my Toyota truck. Once in, I drove home, spent about an hour playing with my little boy, then had to go to work at the armoury. I decided to take the old Ford pickup we own…you see, I spent all last weekend trying to get the damned thing running, and finally succeeded, so I decided to give her a little “run time” since I only had 5 miles to travel in to town.
I jump in, crank her up, and she’s runnin’ like a dream…she wouldn’t even crank before this last weekend. I pop her in gear, and away I go. About a mile outside of the house, the truck suddenly decides to no longer accelerate. Oh, the engine revs fine, but no forward motion…f#cking transmission blew…AGAIN (this actually being the third time this has happened). So I pull off to the side of the road, not looking forward to walking home and abandoning the truck, and when I go to put it in park, I notice the reverse gear is working.
“Great!” I think, “Now I don’t have to leave it on a two lane rural road!”
So I drove it back home, down the winding country road…
Backwards.
Twice I pulled off the road to let other cars pass. Once, I almost got clipped by a semi coming around a blind curve. Finally, though, I pull it in to the driveway, and with much cursing and slamming of doors, I go to the Toyota, climb in, and take off down the road. There I am, cruising at about 55-60 (no idea the actual speed, since the gauges on the Toy don’t work), when, about a mile outside of town, out into the road jumps a cute, fluffy little kitten.
Now, I have been accused of being evil, but I am not so evil as to run down an innocent little kitten. Besides, the blood would have been a mess to clean off…so I slammed on the brakes. The kitten jumped off the road, unharmed, and I breathed a sigh of relief, and then…
WHAM!
I am hit from behind with a force so hard that the truck rolled a couple of feet!
“Shit!” I think, wondering if I just got rear ended…but a quick glance in the back tells me that isn’t so.
No, what happened was the 360 lb anvil slid along the bed of the truck and slammed in to the cab with such force that it pushed the truck! I am sick to my stomach at this point, worrying about the damage it may have done…and also because, after the impact, my back started having spasms. Not fun.
In the back of my truck, I keep a large Rubbermaid container, that I use to carry groceries and other sundries in to keep them dry when it rains. The anvil slammed in to it hard enough to flatten it, as I was able to observe through the back window. The good thing is, it may have saved the truck from much more severe damage, and seeing as how I was on a two lane rural road, and only a mile to town, I decided to wait until I got to town before looking at the possible damage.
The first place I was able to stop was a little electrical station located right outside of town. It is next to a large empty field, and marks the “official” entry in to town. I pull over in the driveway, get out, and after lowering the tailgate, I climb in to the truck.
My back is killing me, but I decide to move the anvil anyway. I pulled on it till it was far enough back to pull out the Rubbermaid container, when POP, the container popped back out to its original shape!
“I’ll be damned,” thinks I, “The commercials weren’t joking!”
I do a preliminary check anyway, and the truck appears undamaged. Hurray for Rubbermaid! I pop the lid back on the container, I wrap some heavy duty rope around the anvil, and I climb out of the truck, closing the tailgate, and leaning against the side with a sigh of relief.
A sigh soon broken by a not so happy sound.
“Grrrrrrrrr!”
I turn to see, in the field by which I am parked, a pack of wild dogs.
That’s right.
A pack of wild dogs.
Y’see, my Podunk little town can’t afford a humane society, so we have two packs of wild dogs that frequent the fringes of town. I, apparently, was imposing on their territory. With a vicious sounding bark, one of them began to run, and the rest followed, on a beeline towards me and the truck.
Determined to prove my manliness, I leapt in the air, screamed like a little girl, and ran to the driver’s side of the truck. I dove in to the cab, catching my leg on the door, and skinning the hell out of it.
“Great!” I thought, “Now they’ll smell blood!”
I slammed the door as the pack got near the truck, then gunned the engine and took off in to town with a squeal of my tires. I got up to what I estimate was about 50 (in a 35MPH zone) when I shoot past, you guessed it!
A patrol car.
I screamed a random obscenity, and slammed on the brakes. The cop looked up at me for several seconds…then went back to reading his paper.
By this point, I was simply happy to make it to the armoury alive. I proceeded to burn one of my hands on a piece of hot metal, but other than that, I was able to return home relatively uninjured. The master armourer I work for followed me home, and helped to unload the pernicious, back-injuring anvil, and I thought, “Well, could be worse!”
It was.
My wife and I got in to a bit of a tiff, because she has been having emotional problems of late, and refuses to see or talk to anyone about it. She also refuses to take medication for it…and it seriously strains our relationship. So we argued about it, eventually solving nothing and ending with her crying, me trying to comfort her, and staying up way too late.
So this morning, I woke up late, ran out, jumped in my truck, and began the forty minute drive to work (since I work in a different town than I live in). I was about thirty minutes in to the drive, and then I ran out of gas. I had to hoof five miles in, having neither a cell phone, nor finding a phone on my way in to work. Nobody would give me a lift either, which I think is due to my trenchcoat and generally pissed off expression.
I got to work late, had to explain things to the new boss (who was thankfully very understanding), and then I had to call on my parents, who helped me get some fuel in the truck. Then I got slammed at work with a load of deadlines (most of which I have made, thankfully, but it appears tomorrow will be even worse).
So that’s it…that has been my past 24 hrs, in a nutshell.
A very large nutshell.
One that should come with padded walls.
All in all, I should be grateful…the Ford broke down close to home, the kitten lived, the Toyota wasn’t damaged, I didn’t get mauled by dogs, the cop didn’t ticket me, I finally got my anvil home, and I got some good exercise this morning.
But I still feel pissy.
Oh well.
