Every week, it's SOMETHING.

[llazy_llama]

I've mentioned this elsewhere before (and damn near daily to my girlfriend) but I seem to have a curse. Every single time, without fail, when I return from my "weekend," something is broken or missing on my truck. I put quotes around "weekend," because I work a rotating 4-on/2-off schedule, so my weekend only falls on an actual weekend once every seven weeks. But it's like clockwork. I get back, and if I'm very lucky, I notice the problem on my pretrip inspection. If I'm not so lucky, I won't find the problem until I go to do a job and notice I'm missing some critical piece of hardware. Either way, there's always something to find. It sounds like hyperbole, but I can assure you that it is every. Single. Week.

Inspired by the "Adventures in home inspection," thread, I thought it might be entertaining to document these adventures, as well as any other random insanity I run into throughout the week. Since today is my first day back after a weekend, and of course something was broken or missing on my truck, let's kick things off.

 

[llazy_llama]

03/29/2026, Sunday

Before I've even left my car in the parking lot, I've already found it. We have sensors on all of our tires to monitor tire pressure, so I'm in the habit of checking before I even leave the car. 45 psi on a drive tire is no bueno. That should be 110 psi.

My day starts with a 5 AM visit to the dispatch office to let our day shift dispatcher Staci know I won't be able to take my truck out. Normally this would be a 20 minute fix, but our mechanics work Monday through Friday and occasionally Saturday if we have serious issues. Of course today is Sunday, so that's a no-go. She tells me that she doesn't think there will be a spare truck available today, which is music to my ears. I'd gladly go back home and try again tomorrow. Alas, that was not meant to be, and around 5:30 a truck is somehow available for me. Joy.

I go out to perform a pretrip inspection on this new truck, and notice that it doesn't have sensors on the tires. I have to gauge all 18 of them like some kind of savage. And of course, because nothing can be smooth first thing in the morning, this truck has a low trailer tire. Other than being a bit low (60 psi), I don't immediately notice anything else wrong with it, so I drive it over to our garage to air it up. After a few minutes of this, I gauge it again. 50 psi. Hmm. Not ideal. Another driver spots me and comes to let me know our compressor is out of service. Lovely. That's certainly not a mission critical piece of equipment. Well, I still have my own personal air hose from my days over the road, so I go and fetch it. While I'm airing up from this trucks compressor, another driver tries using the same broken compressor I had just wasted time with. I let him know what's going on, and he asks to borrow my air hose. Sure, man. I'm not in a hurry or anything. She's all yours.

Total time lost: 90 minutes. And I need to keep checking that trailer tire periodically throughout the day to make sure it's holding air.

 

[llazy_llama]

Random insanity from a few weeks ago. I have no idea what happened here or why. The police officer on the scene and I made eye contact. I gave a "what the fuck?" gesture. She just gave a sad shrug in reply. The driver of the rolled vehicle was nowhere to be found.

 

[llazy_llama]

Random weirdness from just now. Idk who this dude is, but by the lack of fire retardant clothing and a hardhat, he ain't supposed to be here. And come on, man. The porta potty is RIGHT THERE.

 

[llazy_llama]

Less crazy, more just comical. Also from last week, I got to witness this standoff. Two pics posted, see if you can spot the difference.

I let this run it's course for several minutes until I could stop laughing long enough to help. I suspect the pickup driver is not from around here. I goosed the throttle and ran up on the cows, scared them off in a second. Dude seemed content to just sit and wait all day for nature to run it's course.

 

[Nick Burner]

I take it these are pool trucks and you’re not regularly swapping with the same guy who just doesn’t give a shit or you could “have a conversation” with him right?