Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/687054
Voices 8 | Overdrive | June 2016 We've been having those conversa- tions again — those long talks about what we want to be when we grow up. Unfortunately, just making it to "adulthood" in terms of years doesn't mean you stop grinding for the future. I would estimate few hu- mans achieve everything they desire in life by their early 20s. Life evolves, decisions have to be made. You can plan all you want, but business, too, requires modifications you didn't expect. You can learn to swim with a different set of fins, or you can sink. We've made business decisions re- cently that are big and scary to me. I never in a million years thought we'd have a corporation and be starting the process of our own authority. The words themselves sound daunting. However, not daunting enough to ignore the need and dive in. May as well, because I sure can't dance. We finally get home. George has driven a gazillion miles, business is wrapped up and on the lawyer's desk. We go to sit on the smoking porch to relax and love on the old dogs. I take their water bowl into the kitchen to fill it, spill a little water on the tile stairs on the way back down. I make a mental note to go back and clean it up, but I'm tired and don't do it. I went back up the stairs to get the dogs' medicine and treats, and when I came down I realized, as I was sailing through the air with bits of ham and dog medicine floating "Matrix-like" around me, if I had cleaned up the water in the first place, I wouldn't be attempting body-sailing on the smoking porch. Realizing it too late was going to hurt a lot. The silence when I hit the ground was deafening. (This is also called be- ing knocked out, but I'm a writer and need to make it more exciting than a concussion.) Thankfully, I'm carrying an extra 20 pounds and am not very aerodynamic, so my massive wind drag kept me from slamming fully into the sliding glass door. I'm pretty sure my elbow is made of titanium, because it didn't shatter when it took the brunt of the fall. I hit the ground so hard, I laughed instead of cried. That's called being knocked stupid, for those not in the know. I may or may not have inhaled a dose of dog medicine, and I think I have a piece of ham permanently embedded in my ribcage, but I lived to tell the story. The moral? No matter how tired you are, you have to get your butt up and clean your messes. Because you can't dance for a living. Wendy Parker chronicles her journey on the road with her owner-operator husband, George, in the George and Wendy Show blog on OverdriveOnline.com. Scan the QR to read more from her on your phone or tablet. You can't dance for a living, so adapt I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. And with the diagnosis came the CPAP, which I've used every single night since the diagnosis more than two years ago. If I had some other condition and was being treated, I'd just take my pill and keep on truck - ing. But no, this is apnea, so I'm stuck with the stigma and cost of a one-year CDL. The facts support them- selves. If you're diagnosed and are under treatment, you're as good as the next driver. It's not fair. — Thompson Pass Trucker, commenting at OverdriveOnline.com