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In my line of work there can be times when sleep becomes a rare gemstone buried beneath the gravel of the job, that demands your attention around the clock. But long hours can fog the mind and lead you into some of life’s interesting, red-faced, somebody-dig-me-a-hole embarrassing moments. Those precious moments in time that friends and family always seem to remember at every get together. You can rescue someone from a burning building and be declared a hero and within a year no one remembers. . . well. . . except for the person you rescued maybe. But make a dumb mistake, no matter how big or small and you’re tattooed for life. The following is from one of my many tattoos.
After I had worked many long hours, my Supervisor asked if I would take the company truck into town to pick up some cabinet hinges for him before I went to bed that morning. So being the good employee that I am I took off to the hardware store in town. History would later show I should have gone to bed instead.
Arriving at the store, I had parked across the street due to the crowded parking lot in front of the store. As always, due to my habit of forming bad habits, I left the keys in the ignition.
Inside the store, it was taking forever to find the right hinges with the inexperienced sales clerk I was dealing with. But after seeing that I was not impressed with his lack of knowledge concerning cabinet hinges he called the manager for backup. It was a good thing, since I didn’t know any more about cabinet hinges than the sales clerk did. Tired, and now frustrated, I signed the ticket for the hinges, jumped in the truck, and headed back to the office.
Driving back, my thoughts were of how great it was going to feel when I slithered between the covers for some much needed sleep. The music on the radio was a little too soothing as my eyelids felt as though they weighed one hundred pounds each. Reaching over to turn off the radio I noticed it was a CD that was playing and not the radio. First time I noticed that it had a CD player. I wondered what else was new as I glanced around the truck cab. Then, as a sledgehammer gets one’s attention when it hits you between the eyes, I slammed on the brakes and came to a screeching halt to the side of the road. "OH MY GOD, HELP ME", I prayed . . . I was in someone else’s truck! I figured the police would be closing in any second. I was going to jail with a bag of hinges!
I made a "U" turn in the middle of the highway. If I was going to jail for Grand Theft Auto a ticket for an illegal “U” turn wouldn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things at the pressing moment. I figured the police and the owner of the truck would probably be standing in the parking lot of the hardware store gathering forensic evidence from the alleged crime scene. I was getting dizzy from holding my breath as I turned the corner, but there was no one in the parking lot. So I parked the truck back in the same spot from which I stole it from . . . I mean . . . drove it from. And to make matters worse, I turned back to look at the black pickup truck one final time as I opened the door and got into the solid white company truck!
I drove away totally embarrassed with myself. What an idiot I was. I could just see myself trying to explain to the arresting officer how I mistook a solid black truck for a solid white one. A psychological examination and a cat scan would have been in my immediate future I’m sure. But how was I going to save face with this back at the office. No one but I knew about it so the best thing would have been to just keep my mouth shut. Which would have probably worked. . . At least up to the point where my supervisor asked me where the new hinges were. “You’re not going to believe this”, I muttered as I remembered the last place I saw that bag of hinges was in a black truck!
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