Vinita, OK

I'd say today was "one of those days," but they come up so often anymore that it's hard to simply call them "those days" now. I started off near Oklahoma City, leaving the truck stop around 1AM after getting fuel and food. The trip down to the consignee was uneventful, but when I arrived there, I found that one of the tandem pins on the trailer was broken. I could force it in with a hammer, but there was nothing to keep it pulled and it would immediately pop back out. The guy there just said to forget sliding them and back into the dock, but I knew the next place I was going (to drop the trailer off) would require me to slide them, so I sent in a message to maintenance asking if there were any places along the way that I could go to get it fixed. They suggested one - a TA about five miles out of the way - and I went there on my way through Oklahoma City.

The TA, however... well, to say they were having a bad day would be putting it nicely. The manager was screaming at himself over various things, the guy at the counter seemed clueless, other customers in line in front of me had such obscure requests that even I wanted to beat my head against the desk, and to top it all off: they couldn't even fix my trailer. It took them two hours to determine that it was something they didn't have the part for, since it was something in the pin-pulling mechanism itsemf, and they simply said "We're not a trailer shop" when I asked why they couldn't do it. So I called maintenance from the pay phone and got directions to another shop, two exits up the road. This one also had a problem: it was out of business. It wasn't even there. So I spent half an hour trying to find somewhere to turn around, ultimately going about 15 miles out of the way, just to make my way back to the TA I was at.

The third time, I finally got directions to a place that still was in business. I went there, explained the problem... but the pin actually retracted when the shop guy pulled the handle. I actually slid the tandems all the way back, then all the way forward again. I still don't know what he did that I didn't do, but apparently it just suddenly decided to start working. Confused, but happy that I wasn't going to have to waste any more time on it, I took off for Jenks, OK.

Of course, you know what happens next: more trouble. When I arrived at the facility, the tandems wouldn't slide because that darn pin was stuck once again. They wouldn't let me drop the thing until I moved the tandems, either, so I had to figure something out. After perhaps ten minutes of banging on the thing with a hammer and a crobar, I actually had a useful idea: I used the crobar to hold the pin in, then used duct tape to hold the crobar in place while I moved the trailer. I couldn't help but laugh at the sheer silliness of having to resort to duct tape to make this work, but I got the tandems moved, dropped the trailer, and picked up the load. For once, I picked up a trailer with no glaring problems, but this one has a tire that's probably in need of replacement and a tandem-puller that won't stay pulled without using pliers; those are just minor annoyances, though.

Since I'd lost four hours trying to get the trailer fixed (and still, ultimately, not getting it fixed), I was down to just an hour left on my legal workday by the time I left the shipper. The nearest rest area on the turnpike was about 80 miles away, so I decided to go for it and just round off the extra few minutes. I got here without incident and immediately shut the rig down. Now I just have to wait until about 12:45AM before I can start a pre-trip inspection (that level 2 inspection the other day has me paranoid now) and about 1:15 until I can start driving. My plan for tomorrow? Make it all the way over to Indianapolis, about 575 miles away. That would leave me about 323 miles to where I'm delivering. Assuming all goes well, I can just make this on time, but it's going to be exceptionally close. Hopefully I'll be able to pick some time up somewhere along the way.