The road can be a good place or a very bad place depending on how you look at it. I have been pretty lucky over the years but I still have had a few run in’s with the wrong people…

Once while in McAllen Tx I was the last to load my produce and that was the middle of the night. I was on alert for sure, since everyone there was only speaking spanish and the words bonita and senorita kept coming up. I knew they were talking about me, but I didn’t know exactly what about. I got my bills, headed for my truck to pull out of the dock so I could close my doors and before I made it back to the end of my wagon I had a feller waiting to help me which made me nervous.

I was right. The guy got one of my doors, and I had already grabbed the other and as I was latching the door he came along side of me to close the other, but in the mean time copped a feel of me saying something sleazy in mexican. Luckily, I was taller than him and he ended up with my elbow in his mouth. I ran back to my truck and once in, didn’t stop till I was north of Houston. I was scared. And when I finally scaled my load I was way overweight… but, I wasn’t going back.

Another time I was parked outside of a place in Dallas at night waiting to unload and I had a lumper pound on my door wanting to know if I needed them to unload me in the morning. As soon as I had answered the door, and told him no he went away but I ended up with about 20 other guys pounding on my door one after another, until I rolled down the window pointing a gun in their face… They never came back, but I still didn’t sleep a wink after that.

And lastly,  I had a guy pull up next to me, and I guess he could see that a women was driving so he decided to expose himself and play while riding down the road. I was in a governed truck (which will never happen again) at the time and couldn’t get away from him so I slightly pushed him off the road… I always hoped he hurt himself on that one.

There are more stories, but you get the picture. Now days I try not to put myself into a spot I can not get out of, but sometimes your there weather you want to be or not like on Monday when I didn’t get unloaded until after 7:30 p.m. for my 7 am appointment. I was again the last one there, alone in the dark… I make sure I’m all business in these situations and luckily, most times everyone assumes there is a man driving the truck anyway, which is how I like it.

One thing I see with women out here is that a lot of them have their mouths flopping on the CB as they drive into truck stops and to me I see it as inviting trouble. Yes it’s fun getting attention now and then, but really do you want to chance getting the wrong persons attention? I don’t talk on the radio going into a truck stop unless I’m with someone I know and we are going to be leaving shortly or they will be parking next to me during the night. Usually we are on another channel anyway. For my safety I don’t tell anyone exactly where I’m going either. More than not I sleep during the day and run at night. This is safer on several levels, except for the deer I have to dodge. Their are less trucks in the truck stop, so I feel safer parking my truck there and not worrying someone is going to hit me. I am able to fuel, shower, and do anything outside of my truck during the day without too much wait time  as well since it  seems fueling and showering by most is done in the mornings and after supper time.

The last thing I do when leaving my truck I always look, listen, and smell… I make sure I know what’s going on around my truck. I know who is parked next to me, I know who’s coming and going before I get out, and I try to use all of my senses. Prime example: this one time I got up around 3 am to go in and shower. I was on my way back to my truck and I could smell a very strong, fresh cigarette, someone smoking and it was close. I hurried into my truck, locked the doors and lo and behold at the end of my wagon as I was looking in my mirrors was “someone” standing there in the dark with a smoke lit up doing god knows what… He didn’t bother me, but he was there, and I still don’t know why but the hairs on the back of my neck did stand up. Luckily the cigarette gave me enough of an idea to get in, and get going. Luckily, I didn’t walk around my truck like I usually do, checking lights before I leave since I’m pretty sure even if he wasn’t up to no good, I would have had to go back and shower again because at that point I would have filled my drawers!