Al Queda Strikes The American Heartland

This morning, before starting my vacation, I had one last load to deliver, a load of flour scheduled to be in Coldwater Mich at 4 am. I already had it on the truck when I went home last night, so I left at 0230 for the 90 miles to the bakery, and arrived a few minutes after 4 am. The silos are around the south side of the building, and as I pulled in I found a O/O Western Star hooked to a liquid tanker of cooking oil parked there, but I was able to maneuver into the spot I needed to unload. The driver of the Star had apparently parked for the night and was asleep.

I called inside, and the goofy female clerk that worlks late nights finally came out and got my paperowrk and opened up the fittings I needed. As she told me how she doesn't really know much about her job, and signed the paperwork, I reflected on how she has been saying this for the last 4+ years, and just how much I happen to agree with her.

She went back inside and I hooked up hoses and started pumping flour off the trailer. Since it takes a while to unload, once I get the pressures set up and the product flowing, I often will grab a short catnap at night while the trailer unloads, and the vibration as it empties is enough to rouse me and get me out to change over hoppers.

As the third hopper was emptying, I was kind of in a half doze with my seat flopped back. Suddenly, there was a tremendous flash of bright orange light. I was instantly awake, and yelled out in fear and shock. I just knew that a major terrorist attack had occurred, and the terrorists had somehow decided to target a bakery in the middle of the country. I was blinded by the sudden flash, unable to seee anything, and I reacted back to my training from the military, remembering what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. I could hear my small dog whimpering, and I reached down and felt her fur, which told me that the main heatwave from the fireball hadn't reached us yet.

I fully expected that in the next few seconds the fireball and heat wave from the explosion, as well as the debris that formerly was the bakery would be upon us, and I expected that they would find the remains of the truck with me still inside, buried in uncooked dough and burnt hot dog buns, with a baking oven speared through my chest. Not the way that I had planned on leaving this world, but we often don't get to choose our departures,, and it looked like I wasn't going to have a choice in mine.

Well, a little bit more time passed, and I began to wonder what kind of a weapon had been used. It seemed to me that either time was moving very slowly, or this was not the detonation that I believed it to be. After all, the truck was still running, and you would think that the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear detonation wuld interfere with the electronics and operation of the truck. I don't remember anywhere in the operators manual where Mack mentioned that the trucks electronics were hardened against nuclear blast effects, but I might have missed that page.

Slowly, my eyesight started to return, and I realized that the building next to me was still standing. Also realizing that I was not dead, and that the world was not coming to an end, as my eyesight slowly returned I finally discovered the source of the flash that had so devastated myself and the dog, and caused me to think that Al Queda had lit off a nuclear weapon in the area.

it seems that the sleeping driver of the Western Star had woken up, and had flipped on his lights. What I assumed to be a nuclear flash in the pre dawn darkness was merely 6 million candlepower of bright orange LED illumination as he turned on his chicken lights. The orange glow and subsequent loss of vision was due to him turning on his lights, while parked about 10 foot away, with the truck facing me.

It's not Al Queda, nothing to see here, move along....

I need my vacation sooo badly!!!!

 

Naw, I'm just someone that can take a simple flick of a light switch, and embellish it into a story.....