Waiting for a truck
The alarm rang and I was out of bed before I even knew why. This was amazing because every other time my alarm rang during the past month I responded by hitting the snooze button. Somehow I internalized that getting up on time was truly important today. I had a freight truck scheduled to come sometime between 8 and 10 am. It was to pick up the two pallets in my garage, but the pallets still had to be strapped and wrapped before they were ready to go. I threw on clothes and set to work. It took longer than I expected. I’d allowed an hour and the job took two. I kept telling myself it would be fine if the truck arrived before I was done. That the truck driver would understand and wait. But each time I heard the rumble of a truck, my heart would jump and I would hurry even faster. I finished the pallets by 9 am and then the waiting began. At 10:30 am I called the freight company. They told me “sometime today.” So I waited some more.
Waiting for a delivery or a repair takes up an inordinate amount of energy. I spend 90% of my time in my house, but somehow I always manage to have a couple urgent out-of-the-house tasks that fall on the same day that I am waiting at home. And then I feel trapped. I fail to begin things because they might be interrupted. So I check email. Then facebook. Then blogs. Then, because I’m still waiting, I check email again. And the hours stretch and I feel silly because of all the things I could have gotten done in the hours that I spent waiting. So I try to shake off the waiting and settle down to work. But some part of my brain is still listening for the sound of a truck and I keep finding excuses to wander into the front room where I can look out the window. Waiting is distracting.
Around 2:30 pm I got a call from the freight company. It seems that the corporate center forgot to tell the local center that a lift gate truck would be necessary until after all the lift gate trucks were spoken for. The guy on the phone apologized and promised that the truck would come tomorrow. But he couldn’t tell me when exactly. So tomorrow I get to wait again. I’m hoping that I can dive into some tasks and forget that I am waiting. At least now the pallets are completely ready to go. Fortunately the delay in pick-up will not affect the delivery much. Now the pallets will only be 7 days early instead of 8. I just want to hand them off so that my responsibility to them is done. Also it would be nice to have our garage be a garage again instead of a miniature warehouse.