An Armada of Trucks

The circus is leaving town.  All around our neighborhood, the same trucks that came and unloaded a convention’s worth of stuff have returned to pick it all up.  No harm fellas. You’re all just working away, trying to earn a living.  But your trucks really are a pain in the ass. 

To say there is a fleet of trucks would be to grossly under report.  How many boats are in an armada?  That’s more like it.  What do you do with an armada of trucks that are waiting to pick things up?  Yes.  Well-spotted.  You need to park them.  No.  No parking was anticipated at this tremendous facility. 

Practical.  They Chinese are always practical and the streets provide as good a parking lot as any.  There isn’t much the cops can do, or choose to do, other than drive buy in their unassuming cop-cars with their lights flashing.  Trucks now, are lined not just one but two lanes deep for three kilometers along Tian Bei Lu.  They occupy the first block down along An Hua Jie and then the easterly mile or so up to the school.   Countless flatbeds, parked on the streets we normally use, waiting. 

Traffic in our area is usually straight forward.  Now we pull out around and pull up along and drive extra blocks to avoid trucks.  I am heading to the gas station.  The tank is really, empty.  The traffic has been at a stand still for a while now.  We inch up.  I turn the car of to save gas.  We inch another ten feet and stop.  Turn it off again.  Finally, I realize an innovative trucker up ahead has decided to park in the third lane of traffic on our road.  Good thinking.  That means that in addition to the two lanes of traffic the trucks already command, on this four-lane road, this guy has now claimed the third lane. 

No one is frustrated with this man.  No one is yelling at him or anyone else.   No one is particularly happy, but every waits their turn and cuts around this innovator and heads off on their way.  Once I get gas I am going to return via a different route.   Truckers be gone. 

Monday, 5/07/18