Question for the Sages...or at Least Not Troglodytes

Even King Kong wouldn't pee on pavement

Why do men pee outside when they don't have to?


I'm talking about truckers who pee on the pavement next to their truck. On the pavement!?! Oh, the summer time smell of dried pee on hot pavement!

Not all truckers do this, but enough of them do to make a truck stop parking lot pretty stinky. I have confronted more than one of these troglodytes and most of them don't even have the decency to be ashamed.


The other morning Himself and I were enjoying breakfast parked facing a harvested corn field, watching birds pick at the corn cobs scattered about. Along comes a man and his dog. We smile at the dog and nod at the man. It was a lovely little fall scene until the man, less than 20 feet from my window, whips it out and pees next to his trailer tire. After I made eye contact at him and smiled at the dog. It was so windy he had to twist around to keep from peeing on himself or the dog.

Pee-er in question
Polman Transfer Inc
Driver #770

I rolled down my window and took his picture and yelled "You're nasty!" He just shrugged. He was parked right behind the building, it would have taken 47 seconds to get inside and use the toilet like a decent human. Even his dog had enough sense to pee on the grass.


I have seen guys get out of their truck, pee on their tires and then walk inside to the truck stop or rest area. Why?


Is it just to feel the wind on their willy? Are they marking their territory? Would women do this if we could pee standing up?

If you know the answer, please let me know.

Even ugly baby statues are doing it!

Cleveland Rocks..Not

So we unloaded in Cleveland, right? We had a truck load of flour going to the world's oldest, dingiest, most wrong neighborhoodest (not a word) flour selling place, ever.

The black hole for flour purchases.

First of all it was in the middle of a beat up urban neighborhood. Forget the crack dealers and hookers, I'm talking about narrow roads built for horse and buggy. Tight turns, low clearances and light poles leaning way out into the street.

The place itself was built by the Romans in the Pleistocene Era, I think. The dilapidated old brick building could barely stand up under it's own weight and everything was higgeldy piggeldy stacked everywhere. Huge bags of flour, salt, dead Roman soldiers, millions of pallets. All of it out on a open dock area. People came in their cars and backed up to the dock to get 10 lb bags of flour...I guess. The whole thing looked a little shady to me.

See, they aren't even IN Minneapolis!

Himself is such a professional driver that he got into the area to unload without mishap. Lesser mortals would have given up and quit on the spot. I sure would have. Backing up a big truck is all about angles and patience. You must be one with the truck and he is. It still took maneuvering one millimeter at a time for 47,000 times. Getting out of the truck to lay eyeballs of the angle of things.

This is why he drives the truck. After the first, oh 10 times, I would have screamed and cussed at the truck and the building then stormed off to find a new life in Cleveland.






Not a dramatic picture. But still. It was bad. Take my word for it.
The horror of the angles!



We did take a walk around the 'hood to stretch our legs. We Tumbleweeds don't want to become complete globs of unhealthiness.

So we walk around the block, which is about 10 miles because the neighborhood was built with the same angles as the building. Little old houses that have sprawling industrial buildings in their backyards next to payday loan places.

Some of the houses were in pretty good shape really, given the neighborhood. We saw a For Sale sign on one and the flyer described it as a "Cute Slavic Village Colonial" for $24,000. Maybe I'm just not hip to Cleveland-ese, but I had no idea what a Colonial Slavic Village looks like. I do now! It's ghetto crack house with a fresh coat of paint. Who knew??



It all ended with a pretty sunset going away from Cleveland...



Tumbleweed Feet and Shiny Things

Tumbleweed Feet in Louisiana

It’s a slow news day for the Tumbleweeds. No heated toilet seats or laundry pterodactyls to be found, but I do have these random pictures for your pleasure.

Shiny water plant in Michigan

I don’t take pictures of our feet on purpose, our camera has a mind of it’s own and apparently has a foot fetish.

The shiny things are on purpose even though I don’t know what that  purpose might be.

We are skirting Chicago on the way to Cleveland with a load of flour. We were supposed to be on the way to Utah, a blessed relief from the busy and cramped eastern highways. That load wasn’t ready yet so we had to take this one, pthhhhhhh! 

I feel bad for boring you to death, so go here and see something fun!

One Tumbleweed step for Mankind

Doggie rest area in Nebraska

Shiny Silos in West Virginia

Wild Bears and Warm Seats

Go West young Tumbleweeds. Said the voice of Qualcomm, so we did. Actually the Qualcomm doesn't have a voice, it's just the truck's communication device between us and the company that gets us loads. Nevertheless, we came to Colorado to pick up beer, 46,000 pounds of it. That would make for one heck of a tailgate party!

                             

 *****Breaking News Flash****

The Sapp Bros. truck stop in Cheyenne WY has the best bathrooms ever!! I didn't want to come out but alas, we had to move on. Each stall is a little haven with it's own sink. This means you don't have to brush your teeth in front of God and everybody.

The whole bathroom is new and shiny and there is even a TV built into the wall by the main sink. But the really exciting news is that the seats were heated! Such a warm spot for a weary tush!

Imagine trudging through the parking lot with hurricane force winds, during a blizzard and being chased by a bear, to come in a find a warm seat to hold you comfortably in it's gentle bosom...

OK, there was no blizzard or bear and a toilet seat doesn't really have a bosom. But still. It was nice. I take excitement where I find it. That's how a Tumbleweed rolls...

Laundry Pterodactyls and Torpedo Wire

Metropolis IL

Himself and Godzilla's TP

As truckers, the Tumbleweeds haul a variety of freight. Last week we had giant rolls of toilet paper big enough for Godzilla. We picked up 13 rolls of the stuff in Pennsylvania and took it to Connecticut. I guess from there they cut it into to more human sized rolls...unless they ship it to Japan, who knows? We do know that Superman uses toilet paper because here he is carrying it. Probably, to get to someplace more private than a phone booth. This picture was taken in Metropolis, Illinois at a conveniance store. The town also has a ginormous Superman statue, but we haven't seen it yet.

Laundry room Pterodactyl

After toilet paper we got copper wire. Lots of it. We had 6 rolls of it, totaling 18 miles. One roll weighs more than 7,000 pounds. They make torpedo wire out of it. Does't that seem old fasioned or something?  I guess even with all the techonolgy there is in the world, some things still have to be done with rocks and wire. When a submarine shoots out a torpedo they use miles and miles of super skinny copper wire to guide it. In this age of Drones and computer wizardry, this seems a little Atari-ish to me. But what do I know? I'm no rocket surgeon!

In other exciting news, we did laundry. Ha Ha. That would not really count as exciting except for the fact that there was a Pterodactyl on the wall! This laundry-mat was in West Virginia and I don't know what it means, but I think Pterodactyls are pretty awesome. I can even make a Pterodactyl noise at a pretty high volume, so I'm sure it's a sign of some sort. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket or go to Vegas. Also the dryers had an octopus look to them, but really, that pales next to the Pterodactyl. 

4 legged laundry octopus

A Way Better Blog than this One

I asked a friend of mine the other day why I haven't gotten any e-mails from them lately. The answer was "you have a blog and a Facebook page, it's easy to get burned out on you." Dang. I get burned out on me too, which is why I like getting e-mails. So now what am I supposed to do? Look up stuff on the internet, yay!

So today I am sending you to another Blog. Allie Brosh is the creator of Hyperbole and a Half and she is laugh out loud, wet your pants, funny. Go here now. Allie Brosh ROCKS!

from Hyperbole and a Half
This is why I'll never be and adult

Adventures from the Wayback Machine

Hey it's October how did that happen??

Last night the Tumbleweeds were in Jackson, Mississippi at the Flying J truck stop. The last time we were here we had our dear Harley, aka the best dog a Tumbleweed could have, and she and I had a little adventure.

Let's get in the Wayback Machine and cue up that harp music that accompanies having a flash-back. 

There we were in for the night in Jackson and Himself catches up on his logbook and I take Harley for a walk. It was dark and in the back of the parking lot was a patch of woods behind a fence. A nice bit of grass lined the length of the fence so we headed back there and I let Harley off her leash to get in some free sniffing. It was fairly lit on the grass side of the fence but behind it loomed the dark woods, thick with trees, I couldn't see anything. 

Harley was ahead of me happily sniffing back and forth at the fence line when she suddenly got still and the hair along her back went up. Her mohawk, we called it. I called her to come to me but she started chuffing at the fence. I was getting creeped out and didn't want to get close the fence but I was worried for her too. Naturally, she wasn't listening to me, so I walked up to her and put the leash back on. 

I couldn't see anything but I could feel we were being looked at from behind the fence. The hair on my neck was standing up too. A voice from the dark "Is that a Pit-Bull?" I almost jumped out of my skin. The barking began in earnest, Harley style, which sounded like a rooster with laryngitis. She was a Boxer, but I figured the guy might be scared of a Pit-Bull so I said yes and pulled her away, pretending to hold her back from ripping his throat out. In truth she never met a person she didn't like and would happily go off and live with Jack the Ripper probably. She saw the best in everyone. The disembodied voice called "I got a red-nosed pig, wanna pet it?"

We got out of there but fast. I never got to see the red-nosed pig, thankfully. Harley and I made a bee-line back to the well-lit and crowded parking lot, grass be damned, she would have to make do on the pavement. We didn't go back to the truck immediately, in case we were being watched. I didn't want to be murderlized in my sleep by a red-nosed pig.  

Harley's gone now so I didn't get a chance to repeat that little adventure. I would though. I'd love to hear that little sick rooster bark again.