There’s Always a Truck in the Woods Somewhere

We were heading home on the interstate yesterday when we came upon an official yellow truck with flashing lights parked on the shoulder.

It had a flashing sign which informed all 50,000 of us of an accident ahead, complete with an arrow and another message that told us to merge left.

We were close to home — so close in fact that I thought maybe the wreck was beyond our exit.

To my surprise, everyone merged. I was elated.

Nothing makes me more irate driving than people who jam up the blocked lane instead of merging into the one that’s going to get us out of this mess.

Anyway, everybody played nice.

For about a half mile.

And then there went one. And then, there went another.

Pretty soon, we had half the cars — let’s call them the fierce renegades — in the right lane, which was the wrong lane.

And we had the rest of us — let’s call us the knights in shining armor — in the left lane where we were supposed to be.

Of course, we all know what happened next. Both the fierce renegades and we knights both came to a complete standstill because the fierce renegades messed it up for all of us.

We were stuck beside the fierce renegades for close to an hour. I’m pretty calm in situations like this — up to a certain point — but yesterday we were later than we meant to be getting home already, and we had been in the car a long time.

While we sat there, I dazzled Kim with some of my old-man-in-training pontifications on traffic flow, fierce renegades and other things I know she was dying to hear.

Finally, though, we came upon the wreck. By then I was so weary I even let a fierce renegade merge in front of me because I was too tired to tailgate the knight in shining armor ahead of me just for spite.

A tractor trailer had run off the road, gone down a short embankment and come to a stop in the edge of the woods.

It had obviously happened much earlier because two tow trucks were hooked to the trailer. A couple of cop cars were there as well.

As we were rubbernecking — hey, even knights in shining armor have their faults — Kim said, “I’ll bet that’s the driver.

And then I saw him.

He was sitting in the bed of a pickup truck belonging to the wrecker company.

He looked pretty bewildered. No, he actually looked like he had survived a wild ride inside an 80,000-pound missile earlier today.

Regardless of the circumstances, can you even imagine how that call to the boss went?

It didn’t take me long to realize that our inconvenience couldn’t hold a candle to the kind of day that guy was having.

And that just goes to prove to me, once again, that no matter how bad of a day any of us is having, we don’t have to look far to see someone who’s got it worse.

I need reminded of this from time to time when things aren’t as peachy as I think I deserve for them to be for me.

There’s always a truck in the woods somewhere.