Fuel Island Hijinx

Had a huge scare at the Wheeling TA fuel island.

2nd from the farthest pump, so you got to "S" it into the island at that end because of the layout of the truck parking.

Pull in, set brakes, turn engine off... Notice the guy ahead of me is a truck that just passed me less than 10 minutes back on the interstate... So I wonder how long his break will be cuz at some point I will have to fill the reefer.

All of a sudden he starts backing up slowly, I can't see his mirrors, so I start laying on my horn... But something tells me I need to start up my
truck and back up... I can see his tires rolling, so I know he is not shifting weights on his Tandems.

I roll back suddenly realizing I can't go very far very fast becaus of the parked trucks and the S it took to get in.

Well, I see the truck in front of me roll forward now, so I guess he heard my horn that I was still laying on... (meanwhile I had backed out 10 yards)

I sit there to see what's going on as his trailer is pulled up enough for me to get back in the island... Then the trailer starts going in reverse again.

Now I'm thinking, for some reason this idiot needs me to back completely off the island so he can back through...

So I pull my break, get out on my step and throw my arms up in the air clearly where he could see me from his mirror.

Truck just sits there, so I go knock on his door... No one in the aeat... So I thought he jumped back to the sleeper as I could hear his stereo blasting in the cab. He clearly didn't get fuel as I just saw him on the road.

If you haven't figured it out, he was not in the truck, and he never set his breaks.. Based on our eventual conversation, the truck must have been at a complete standstill for about 5 minutes before it rolled on it's own.

Well, at this point i had not figured it out as I thought he was hiding or changing clothes in the bunk (I'm a big guy but not a fighter). As I walked the distance of his trailer back to my cab I realized his Tandems where in a well backed up by a speed bump a bit behind the well.

It hit me that the guy didn't set his breaks, and if that bump wasn't
there there was no way I could have backed out quickly enough with that reverse "S". It would have hit me, and possibly pushed me back into the parked trucks if I couldn't hold it with the brakes.

The guy comes out with his shopping bags. No harm no foul, but he seemed to be a bit embarrassed. Oh well.