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Drunk and stupid in public.
Apr. 7th, 2013 05:12 amWhat an incredibly frustrating experience for only four hours of pay. Aaarrrrrrgh!!!!
I work for a theatrical lighting rental house. Sometimes I will drive one of the delivery trucks if none of the usual drivers are available. I got home from one of them. Picking up two different shows. First one in the theater district in Boston. But the alley that I have to take to get to the loading door of the stage has two nightclubs on it. It's a narrow crooked alley, with cars parked on both sides and I'm driving the company's new truck we got last month for the first time. It's also the biggest truck I've ever driven in my life. (26 footer. Previously the biggest was a 24 foot truck. Also, this truck is six inches wider than our others. )
So I make my way there through boston saturday night traffic, making my way past the double parked cars, the cabs that stop in the middle of the intersection to pick up fares, and random drunken morons who are standing in the middle of the street trying to flag down a cab, or their girl, or their wits. I get there, and they are ready to load. It takes a few minutes while I try to remember the tricks to unfold the lift gate. (Its a new safer lift gate. You have to unlatch each part in order to unfold it. ) while we are loading, which went fine, the crew there was great, someone drives down the alley in their suburban assault vehicle, and it is too wide to fit in the space between my truck parked in the loading zone, and the cars parked by the drunks across the street. So he waits. Cars build up behind him and they all start leaning on their horns. What a bunch of [dirty word]s.
So we finish loading, and I'm strapping the load down and closing the door and folding the lift gate back up. (The teamsters, as soon as the last box was on the truck, vanished. One of them did offer to stay to help me fold the gate, but I declined with thanks.) As I got closer to finishing, the drunken narcissists were leaning longer and harder on there horns. But I can't go. There is a mob of nightclub people standing in the street, in line for a club, and they were unwilling to move themselves out of the way of the big white truck creeping closer and closer to them. Were they afraid they might lose their place in line or were they just that drunk and stupid?
Finally I get past them and make my way slowly through the theater district party traffic heading to my next stop, Fenway Park. But all the roads from here to there have a confusing maze of one way streets, low overhead clearances, weight and truck restrictions, and full of drunk and stupid boston drivers.. *sighs* I had spent half an hour with our warehouse manager and a couple of our drivers on friday figuring out a route there that wouldn't get me any tickets or wedged under an overpass. I missed a turn when a couple of drivers blocked me from getting into the left lane to make a left turn. So I'm now driving throught the maze of twisty little streets hoping that no cops see me and I don't ding any of the cars parked here, there and everywhere. My GPS kept telling me to get onto storrow drive. (Nope. 13 foot tall truck, 10 foot clearance underpasses. ) So it was kinda useless.
A Boston policeman was parked ahead of me, and I chose boldness over fear, and pulled up next to him, and asked him how I could get me and my truck to Fenway without breaking any more traffic regulations. Fortunately for me and my driving record, he took pity on me and told me the way.
Once I got to Fenway, I found the entire street had been covered with tow away zone signs in preparation for the opening day game on monday. So I parked in the tow zone, said a prayer for traffic luck, and went inside. Fenway park, at night time, the lights were on, but the only folks there were a couple of guards, and the folks working the party that I was coming in to pick up. A little spooky, but kinda neat too, being there with nobody in sight, and not hearing anyone. I tried to take a pic of the field with my cellphone camera, but they looked like crap, so I deleted them.
Helped the crew finish packing up the gear. Until the sound company guys came back with pitiful expressions. They had left their truck's lights on, and now it wouldn't start, and could we jump-start them? Went to go help them, realized that their truck was a twelve volt truck, not a 24 volt, so they could jump it themselves from their car. Rolled things down. loaded the truck and embarked on trying to get me in the big white truck back to the shop.
Oh yeah, the truck legal route was right down Lansdowne street, the busiest street in Boston for nightclubs. I got to that corner, looked down Lansdowne street, seeing mobs of double-parked cars, couple of stretch limos, and lots of drunken partiers, I instantly decided to risk the ticket instead of squashing drunks in the street, and went another way. I'm pretty sure I violated some street restrictions about no trucks after whatever PM, but I was not taking the big white truck into the Lansdowne street morass. Once I finally got myself back on to Massachusetts Avenue, I drove back to the shop without incident.
My tolerance for drunken antics got reduced again tonight. And now that I have vented my frustration.... It's time to go to sleep, at 5AM.
I work for a theatrical lighting rental house. Sometimes I will drive one of the delivery trucks if none of the usual drivers are available. I got home from one of them. Picking up two different shows. First one in the theater district in Boston. But the alley that I have to take to get to the loading door of the stage has two nightclubs on it. It's a narrow crooked alley, with cars parked on both sides and I'm driving the company's new truck we got last month for the first time. It's also the biggest truck I've ever driven in my life. (26 footer. Previously the biggest was a 24 foot truck. Also, this truck is six inches wider than our others. )
So I make my way there through boston saturday night traffic, making my way past the double parked cars, the cabs that stop in the middle of the intersection to pick up fares, and random drunken morons who are standing in the middle of the street trying to flag down a cab, or their girl, or their wits. I get there, and they are ready to load. It takes a few minutes while I try to remember the tricks to unfold the lift gate. (Its a new safer lift gate. You have to unlatch each part in order to unfold it. ) while we are loading, which went fine, the crew there was great, someone drives down the alley in their suburban assault vehicle, and it is too wide to fit in the space between my truck parked in the loading zone, and the cars parked by the drunks across the street. So he waits. Cars build up behind him and they all start leaning on their horns. What a bunch of [dirty word]s.
So we finish loading, and I'm strapping the load down and closing the door and folding the lift gate back up. (The teamsters, as soon as the last box was on the truck, vanished. One of them did offer to stay to help me fold the gate, but I declined with thanks.) As I got closer to finishing, the drunken narcissists were leaning longer and harder on there horns. But I can't go. There is a mob of nightclub people standing in the street, in line for a club, and they were unwilling to move themselves out of the way of the big white truck creeping closer and closer to them. Were they afraid they might lose their place in line or were they just that drunk and stupid?
Finally I get past them and make my way slowly through the theater district party traffic heading to my next stop, Fenway Park. But all the roads from here to there have a confusing maze of one way streets, low overhead clearances, weight and truck restrictions, and full of drunk and stupid boston drivers.. *sighs* I had spent half an hour with our warehouse manager and a couple of our drivers on friday figuring out a route there that wouldn't get me any tickets or wedged under an overpass. I missed a turn when a couple of drivers blocked me from getting into the left lane to make a left turn. So I'm now driving throught the maze of twisty little streets hoping that no cops see me and I don't ding any of the cars parked here, there and everywhere. My GPS kept telling me to get onto storrow drive. (Nope. 13 foot tall truck, 10 foot clearance underpasses. ) So it was kinda useless.
A Boston policeman was parked ahead of me, and I chose boldness over fear, and pulled up next to him, and asked him how I could get me and my truck to Fenway without breaking any more traffic regulations. Fortunately for me and my driving record, he took pity on me and told me the way.
Once I got to Fenway, I found the entire street had been covered with tow away zone signs in preparation for the opening day game on monday. So I parked in the tow zone, said a prayer for traffic luck, and went inside. Fenway park, at night time, the lights were on, but the only folks there were a couple of guards, and the folks working the party that I was coming in to pick up. A little spooky, but kinda neat too, being there with nobody in sight, and not hearing anyone. I tried to take a pic of the field with my cellphone camera, but they looked like crap, so I deleted them.
Helped the crew finish packing up the gear. Until the sound company guys came back with pitiful expressions. They had left their truck's lights on, and now it wouldn't start, and could we jump-start them? Went to go help them, realized that their truck was a twelve volt truck, not a 24 volt, so they could jump it themselves from their car. Rolled things down. loaded the truck and embarked on trying to get me in the big white truck back to the shop.
Oh yeah, the truck legal route was right down Lansdowne street, the busiest street in Boston for nightclubs. I got to that corner, looked down Lansdowne street, seeing mobs of double-parked cars, couple of stretch limos, and lots of drunken partiers, I instantly decided to risk the ticket instead of squashing drunks in the street, and went another way. I'm pretty sure I violated some street restrictions about no trucks after whatever PM, but I was not taking the big white truck into the Lansdowne street morass. Once I finally got myself back on to Massachusetts Avenue, I drove back to the shop without incident.
My tolerance for drunken antics got reduced again tonight. And now that I have vented my frustration.... It's time to go to sleep, at 5AM.
