Hey Thanks Lucky...

Whenever I park on private property (even Wal-Marts), I go in and ask whoever is in charge of it if it's OK. If you approach a Wal-Mart manager or service desk with a bag of just-purchased items in your hand and ask if it's OK if you park at the back of their lot for the night, they're usually more than OK with it.

It's always best to get permission first, but then don't park where deliveries have to be made. A little common sense goes a long way.

Hey, anytime pal.

(3:00pm, exactly 4 hours 17 minutes after arriving for an 11:00am pickup appointment)

"Hi, do you have a restroom here that I can use?"

"Drivers aren't allowed to use our restroom."

"That's okay. What's the best place for me to leave a steaming heap of shipping clerks?"

Funny thing, drivers are supposed to be the nasty ones. I was pulled in about a week ago at the scale in St. Clair, MO, about milepost 238 on the eastbound side of I-44. Ended up being shut down for a cracked brake drum (dunno how I missed that - I did actually look at the drums when I picked up that trailer the day before and didn't see any cracks, but it had obviously been cracked a long time, as I could tell when the road service guy pulled it off, so it had to have been cracked when I picked it up) and a leaking hub seal (I knew about that, was trying to get to a terminal to get it fixed, even had an appointment set up).

The DOT officer was kind enough to let me use the restroom in the scale house, despite a sign saying "Employees Only. Drivers use the port-a-john outside."

A few hours later, while the road service guy was working on the truck, I went to the port-a-john (it was a shorter walk). That was the cleanest port-a-john I have ever seen, and it's a safe bet that the only people who use it are truck drivers.

The nastiest restroom I've ever seen was at a shipper in Newark, NJ. I was afraid to touch anything in there, and felt like I needed a penicillin shot and a tetanus booster after I whizzed in something that vaguely resembled a toilet and left without touching anything but the door (and that with my shoe).