Monday, March 26, 2012

There's a Tear in My Beer

Dear New Jersey Port People,

When loading 40,000 pounds of spendy imported beer, it might be a good idea to wrap it up more tightly and perhaps, oh I don't know, block it in with something so it can't tip over. 



Sincerely,

A Tumbleweed Crying Over Spilled Beer.

***

Most often, the trailers we pick up are loaded and sealed, like this one. We have no control over whether it is loaded by morons or masterminds.

Mostly, the stuff we get is loaded really well. Some places use giant plastic air bags to fill in the space between pallets. Would have worked really well here, but I guess the people at the New Jersey port had better things to do that day.

We aren't held liable for loading problems, but usually it is left up to us to dispose of the damaged contents.

This has worked in our favor several times, because food companies will reject a damaged outer carton even if the product itself isn't damaged. 

I'm not too proud to eat a bag of potato chips that came from a dented box. Plus, I hate to see perfectly good stuff go to waste. 

Before the beer, the last damaged thing we had was diapers. We're too old for babies and too young to use them ourselves, so we gave them to a truck stop janitor who could use them.

It's not uncommon to find truckers driving around a truck stop trying to give away something they have have no need or room for. We've been on both sides of this transaction: we've gotten rid of eleventy tons of napkins and diapers this way and received 7 cases of mini peppers, 783 granola bars, and 40 packs of gum.




But do you think they let us keep the damaged cartons of beer? Oh nooooo. The warehouse guys assured us that they would be glad to get rid of it for us and that we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about it.

***

Tumbleweed Fact:

Pilsner Urquell, the beer that was so rudely loaded, is a tasty beer all by itself, but it's also a fantastic mixer with a dry champagne.

Tall glass
Half beer
Half champagne

It's called a Herrengedeck and it's a Tumbleweed Tradition.

You're welcome.

***

Coincidentally, Grolsch makes a
fine Herrengedeck too!

I launched 'spilled beer' into the Google and came up with this website that has crazy pictures of truck spills. They haven't updated in a while, but it's worth a look. I would *definitely* rather clean up some broken beer bottles than rotting pig carcasses (carcai?).



10 comments:

  1. The thing that shocks me most here is they actually ran a semi down the road with only what - 2 skids in the trailer? So what is that about $5000 of empty space? Holy Cow, if that was plants you might even try to get the driver to take a few boxes in the cab with him/her...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The picture is misleading, the trailer was full, they just left weird gaps between the pallets at the back.

      It was a LOT of beer! Over 14,000 bottles and not ONE for us. :(

      Thanks for riding along!

      Delete
  2. Sorry it took me awhile to comment, but I had to clean up the vomit I threw up from looking at those grotesque pictures of all that spilled beer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow! Your sadness over spilled beer really goes deep! And I *know* it must be sadness and not just that you are an unpatriotic pinko commie who hates beer.

      BTW, if you're still feeling queasy, I would not advise looking at the rotting carcai!

      Delete
  3. I learn so much from these posts. Peppers and gum is a pretty good combination to come across - eat the peppers then clean your breath with the gum...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm here to serve. I didn't even know they still made plain old spearmint gum anymore. Have you seen some of the gum flavors out there? They are all complicated and not gum like at all.

      Delete
  4. As if I needed *another* reason to hang out at truck stops - free stuff, here I come!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just don't trust anyone who says you can pet their red-nosed pig. That is a big fat lie. Trust me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. How come one of the guys in a photo on the web site you referred us to gets a beer? NO FAIR! (Don't think you'd want to tote a pig home, tho - dead or not...)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know. That is totally unfair! I think *Jas* might want to take a pig home--dead or not!

      Delete

Do what?