be careful what you wish for

lately while traipsing through yard after yard of shimmering whitestuff,
i've been bemoaning the fact that nothing interesting (read blogworthy) has happened on the job lately.

today that streak of boredom came to a crashing halt..almost literally.

With ten minutes left to deliver at the end of my nice, quiet,day, i turned my mail truck off of a cul-du-sac and back onto the main part of the street. something didn't feel right and the truck began sliding off the road and towards the mailbox of one of my customers who is lucky enough to call florida his home for the winter.
"good thing he won't be around to see the crash", i thought. amazingly i avoided the box and wound up in a small snowdrift.

WTF? I asked myself.
I wondered if maybe a large amount of snow and ice had gotten lodged underneath the chassis of the truck somehow as i had come around the corner.
maybe i'll just back it up and try to negotiate the truck in the right direction.
nice thought, but incorrect.

a concerned customer who does not have the good fortune (or perhaps, good sense) to live in florida half the year saw what was going on and came out of his house with a WTF? look on his face.
"maybe you got some snow and ice stuck under there somehow when you came around the corner" he offered.
yeah-no. i said.
let's back it up one more time just to be ridiculous.
no go.
"i just can't seem to steer this thing".
it took me a few minutes to realize that the steering wheel had absolutely no play in it at all. it was spinning all the way around with no resistance like a fake steering wheel mounted on a jungle gym at a playground that kids over zealously crank away on.

thankfully my tracphone was back in service after conking out unceremoniously and mysteriously the week before.
i called the HELP MY SORRY ASS line at the PO and they sent out a fellow carrier (Racecar Johnny) to take my mail.
as we waited for the tow truck, he said "I can't help it..i've got to see what's going on under the hood. we popped the hood and there it was...the steering column completely detached from the steering box.
"This is your lucky day" he told me.
somehow, freezing my ass off by the side of the road, i didn't feel so lucky.
"If this thing had busted 15 minutes from now when you were driving 50 mph back to the PO in heavy traffic..it would have been lights out".
now, i felt lucky.
"Do you think my funeral would have been fun"? i asked, not knowing what else to say.
"Yeah, i think it would've".
the tow truck dude arrived on scene..checked out the situation and asked me,
"Do you know how lucky you are that this happened where it did"?

guess i dodged bullet.
guess also, that sometimes keeping both hands on the wheel
won't always do the trick.