Job And A Half

You see very interesting things if you linger where people are to be found. The other night, I had just finished doing some grocery shopping. I hit my limit for being in a store just minutes in due to the crowds, but soldiered on and got my food. On my way out, I noticed a truck pulling into the parking lot. I resolved to stay for a moment and watch the truck pull into the loading dock. I think it's a remarkable thing to see done, which I'm sure sounds odd.

It's tough to maneuver a truck, taking a skilled driver under the best of conditions, which these were not. At this grocery store, the loading dock is in the front, right by the entrance. Ideally it would be in the back, far from customer parking. Well, that building seems to have no back, making things harder on the truck drivers. I knew it would be a sight to see this truck pull in, and what I saw over the next minutes was that for sure.

I notices as the truck pulled in to the right that there were a couple of people there where the trucking was going to be headed. There was a man on a bicycle and a woman sitting against the side wall. She was talking on her phone, and I can tell you that her voice carried. I figured that they would pose an unusual problem for the driver, who was already in the process of moving back toward the dock. I thought the pair would have to move.

When the truck was almost there, its driver honked at them, and the cyclist finally moved. The woman did not seem about to, and I figured something would have to give. I turned out to be wrong, and the truck pulled in right past her. She didn't care, I could see that much. I guess she was so engaged in what turned out to be a rather heated phone call that she had no attention to spare for the 18 wheeler coming by. I would have been scared and moved, but then from my vantage point there hadn't seemed to be room for both. Everything turned out fine (excepting that conversation) and it really had been quite a parking job.