I don't think God wants us in Arkansas
As some of you may know from my bitter complaints on FaceBook, the company D and I work for has relegated us to Arkansas for the next two weeks. For those not up on their US geography, this is roughly a 13 hour drive from where we live. The project is a survey in advance of expanding a prison. Wacky fun, huh?
We were given yesterday to drive down to the project area, and were told that we can claim eight hours of the drive on our timesheets and up to $200 in expenses. This is very minimal in terms of what we usually get for travel to jobs.
Anyway, we couldn't set out early because we were waiting for D's paychecks to arrive in the mail. Somehow his direct deposit didn't get set up in time (though mine did), and he was worried about being able to afford the trip to Arkansas without that money, especially since they want to send us to Kentucky for two months immediately after, and that's a long time to leave a paycheck sitting in a mailbox. The mail usually arrives by noon. Yesterday, it arrived just before 3:00 pm. We threw the pets in the car, rushed down to the bank, and *finally* hit the road.
About 40 miles later, just outside Amherst, VA, the engine in D's Jeep crapped out. There were flames. We sat by the side of an unfamiliar road with the cat and the dog for about 45 minutes, waiting for the only tow truck in Amherst willing to come out that close to 5:00 pm. The gentleman who picked us up (Buster) was very nice, but it turns out it will cost more than the Jeep is worth to get it repaired.
So there we were at almost 6:00 pm, still with a twelve hour drive between us and the job we were supposed to be at the following morning at 7:30 am, and we didn't have a car. We managed to get a rental car from the one place in Amherst that stayed open until 6:00, but they don't do one-ways, so we're stuck with a $600 rental PT Cruiser for the next two weeks until we can drive it all the way back Amherst before turning around and heading straight back to Kentucky -- *if* we can find ourselves an affordable car between now and then!
I don't know if y'all are familiar with the PT Cruiser. I always thought of it as a smallish, cute-looking minivan. I even used to want one, until last night. I could not believe how little space they have! And we were crammed in there with the pets and all our stuff for two weeks. Besides this, the headrests are apparently not meant for actual head-shaped heads, and every time one of us shifted in our seats, the airbag indicator started dinging at us and would not shut up for several minutes.
We finally made it to our hotel at 5:40 am, just in time to throw our things into the room, have a 45 minute nap, and then get ready for work. I'm too tired to do the math and find out if we're even going to break even on this job. I cannot believed I survived through the entire work day. I have to go get food now or I won't have the energy to eat tonight.
We were given yesterday to drive down to the project area, and were told that we can claim eight hours of the drive on our timesheets and up to $200 in expenses. This is very minimal in terms of what we usually get for travel to jobs.
Anyway, we couldn't set out early because we were waiting for D's paychecks to arrive in the mail. Somehow his direct deposit didn't get set up in time (though mine did), and he was worried about being able to afford the trip to Arkansas without that money, especially since they want to send us to Kentucky for two months immediately after, and that's a long time to leave a paycheck sitting in a mailbox. The mail usually arrives by noon. Yesterday, it arrived just before 3:00 pm. We threw the pets in the car, rushed down to the bank, and *finally* hit the road.
About 40 miles later, just outside Amherst, VA, the engine in D's Jeep crapped out. There were flames. We sat by the side of an unfamiliar road with the cat and the dog for about 45 minutes, waiting for the only tow truck in Amherst willing to come out that close to 5:00 pm. The gentleman who picked us up (Buster) was very nice, but it turns out it will cost more than the Jeep is worth to get it repaired.
So there we were at almost 6:00 pm, still with a twelve hour drive between us and the job we were supposed to be at the following morning at 7:30 am, and we didn't have a car. We managed to get a rental car from the one place in Amherst that stayed open until 6:00, but they don't do one-ways, so we're stuck with a $600 rental PT Cruiser for the next two weeks until we can drive it all the way back Amherst before turning around and heading straight back to Kentucky -- *if* we can find ourselves an affordable car between now and then!
I don't know if y'all are familiar with the PT Cruiser. I always thought of it as a smallish, cute-looking minivan. I even used to want one, until last night. I could not believe how little space they have! And we were crammed in there with the pets and all our stuff for two weeks. Besides this, the headrests are apparently not meant for actual head-shaped heads, and every time one of us shifted in our seats, the airbag indicator started dinging at us and would not shut up for several minutes.
We finally made it to our hotel at 5:40 am, just in time to throw our things into the room, have a 45 minute nap, and then get ready for work. I'm too tired to do the math and find out if we're even going to break even on this job. I cannot believed I survived through the entire work day. I have to go get food now or I won't have the energy to eat tonight.