Don't breathe

At least I am trying to keep from it. Today was an overall really suck ass day. BAD. The morning started off with a two hour drive to my current jobsite, where I am building two sets of custom steel gates for a customer. I wouldn't do this for just any customer, but these folks are long time clients, they pay well, and they treat me wonderfully.

Unfortunately, my drive down was marred badly by a truck driver who was either digging in the seat or floor for something, and crossed the yellow line about 100 yards in front of me. This is a two lane highway, so I went to the only place I could, the ditch. At 70 miles an hour. And it hurt, a LOT. I had both hands on the wheel, and was feathering the brakes for all I had. Didn't want to stomp on them and start skidding (but I was skidding anyway). I watched in absolute horror as the load of steel tubing I was carrying started shelling off the back of the truck right into the traffic behind me, and felt my gut drop when my welding skid (with my welder and plasma cutter) flipped out of the back of the truck as well. The ditch was ROUGH and everything in the truck was scrambled. The middle passenger side toolbox popped open, so I was spewing handtools as well. But I finally got stopped without rolling. Only because the truck is so heavy and low to the ground that it is almost impossible to turn over.

And the bastard didn't even stop. He left black lines on the pavement where he was trying to get his truck under control, and then he just drove the hell right off. The big truck behind me laid black marks too, trying to get stopped before hitting all the shit that came flying out of my truck, right at him. He got stopped and bailed out with a fire extinguisher. With all the dust, it looked like I was on fire, so I bailed out too. No fire, thank goodness. And this sweet trucker blocked the road and helped me load up all my shit. We picked up as many tools as we could find, but I scattered that stuff about 200 yards, and I am sure we didn't find all of it.

The truck is a bit bruised. It tore the air dam off the front, bent the bumper down and back, blew the bushings out of the sway bar on both sides, bent the right front rim and put a monster dent in the oil pan. But it still runs. The welder is ok, the plasma cutter is hurt, but I don't know how badly yet.

And I hurt, a lot. In several spots. I have a solid band of bruise across my hips, where the lap belt grabbed me. And I am pretty sure I have a cracked or broken rib on my right side, where the shoulder belt rides. Plenty of other aches and bruises, and I bet I find more tomorrow. At least the rib settled down once I wrapped it up nice and snug.

I just hope I can go to work tomorrow. Hell, I hope I can get out of bed. The longer I sit, the worse it is hurting. Not funny.