Downtown Vista Valley City…
It was almost a sad day to say goodbye to Jay and his new monkey minion after completing the required miles, but at the same time Andrew was glad to finally be taken on to the next step to getting closer to being his own boss and making his own money. Right after he completed yet another, this time longer, set of miles with a new trainer for some reason. Jimmie Dawn explains that his drivers are required to complete a pre-training event before jumping on to the official training event just to make sure that the new drivers are totally and surely prepared for independence on the road. He wanted to minimize newbie mistakes and keep them rolling smoothly for as long as possible before making complacent mistakes.
Andrew was given the directions to Oliver Moreworth's truck parked somewhere in the Doggonit Transport terminal yard. He was to locate a light blue, newest model Teeter Mac.
Mr. Oliver Moreworth was relaxing in the bunk, scrolling on the world map looking for a nice spot to build his castle.
"Ah yes, look at all this wonderful land, absent of any people for hundreds of miles around…perfect place to build my castle, complete with a moat and nice hungry, people eating alligators…" Oliver relished in his fantasy of living in his own castle, alone except the company of trained, people eating reptiles. That is until a knock was heard on the driver door. Oliver rips open the privacy curtain and feasts his beady eyes on Andrew Dillon, standing there with a goofy smile on his face and his duffle bag beside him. Oliver flings the door open.
"What's up?" Andrew says gleefully, "Oliver Moreworth? I'm Andrew, i'm your new-"
"Yes, Yes! Come in! I've been awaiting your arrival since this morning!" Oliver snaps in his snobbishly elegant english accent.
Andrew climbs into the truck and is immediately hit with a pleasant aroma of minty tea.
"Whoah! It smells so…fresh in here!" Andrew says. He looks into the bunk and is surprised to see that it was elaborate with cauldrons boiling with water, tea plants hanging all around, and a portrait of a large castle on the bottom bunk wall.
"Wow…it's so…comfy in here." Andrew says as Oliver takes his duffle bag and tosses it on the top bunk.
"Indeed, but don't get too comfortable just yet", Oliver says, "We're on a load heading to Santa Rosa. Customer is a place called, Beauty World Distribution. I've already picked it up and I'd like to see how you've progressed in your driving ability. Nothing more than a building of trust, you understand?"
"Sure! No problem! I love driving and I think I'm pretty good at it so far." Andrew replies.
"I'll be the judge of that!" Oliver snaps.
After briefly going over the paperwork and confirming the address and the commodity, which was cosmetics, Andrew was soon pulling out of the terminal and navigating to Beauty World Distribution.
Just over three hundred and fifty miles from the Doggonit Terminal, Andrew ran his clock down with a non stop drive to the town of Santa Rosa, the only problem was, he was lost. Well, more like in a situation that was not suitable for semi trucks. He found himself in a very narrow street, lined with cars on both sides. The power lines above were scraping over the top of the trailer as he drove down the road which seemed to get narrower and narrower.
Andrew wanted to fidget with his phone to see if he could correct the gps, but didn't want to get caught by Oliver who made it a strict rule not to be on his phone while driving. "No phones in your hand at any time, only steering wheels!" Oliver's rule note was plastered on the windshield so that it could be seen no matter what. This made Andrew hesitant to grab his phone the entire drive.
Finally, Oliver bursts thru the curtain.
"Should be about there by now." Oliver says as he plops down into the passenger seat.
"Uh, yeah, about that…" Andrew says, half relieved that Oliver was there to save the day but also afraid of his response to not being at the customer and instead, on a street he wasn't supposed to be on.
"Oh don't tell me you're lost?" Oliver says, "does this look like a truck route?"
"Yeah I guess I just-"
"How do you get lost in the countryside? For a young someone who's always on a smart phone, you sure are dumb!" Oliver snaps.
"Hey, I wanted to correct the GPS but I'm not allowed to touch my phone while driving!" Andrew wailed.
"You didn't think to pull over, mate?" Oliver says.
"Oh, no I guess I didn't." Andrew says with a dumb look. "I just got so in the mode to drive I didn't want to stop."
"No matter, I'm in the passenger seat, I can be on my stupid smartphone for the time being, get us out of this fucking mess." Oliver says pulling out his smartphone and bringing up his own GPS to correct the route. It wasn't long before Andrew's mistake was corrected and they were finally pulling up to the property of the customer. The property was the most colorful Andrew has ever seen. The entire building was a light pink and a large, colorful ball of pinks, purples and blues was displayed on top of the building, just above the large, glowing letters that spelled out Beauty World. The place certainly looked like a place on another planet.
"We're here! And we're still on time!" Andrew cheers, "and just in time because I'm out of time."
"Aside from failing to properly follow directions, you did drive quite well", Oliver says, "I was actually able to get in a bit of a nap. Very rarely does that ever happen with a trainee behind the wheel."
As Andrew neared the guard shack, they could see that the guard was standing outside of it and waving his hands signaling for Andrew to stop and not proceed any further.
"Bloody hell is the problem now?" Oliver asks sourly. When the guard was at the driver window, he began to explain in an almost erratic and crazed manner.
"I need you to back up and get out of here!" the guard says with fear in his eyes.
"Back a shoe up your ass!" Oliver barks, "We're here on time! Let us through!"
"It's not safe!" The guard explains, "Something's going on in the warehouse and no one is allowed in!"
"Something like what?" Andrew asks.
"Probably in there goofing off!" Oliver answers, but Andrew didn't take that as an answer and waited for the guards reply.
"I don't know, but I believe the police are on their way and I was told not to let anyone in until further notice."
"Dammit!" Oliver snaps, "Take note of our arrival! I'll be damned if we're marked late after this! Back it up Andrew!"
Andrew backs the truck up slowly towards the entrance where he would have to back into the road as carefully as he could.
"I'm going to give this damn Jimmie a call", Oliver dials for Jimmie, "let him know we're not late."
At the same time, back in the streets of Vista Valley City, a suped up muscle car speeds down the street. It was Jimmie dawns "musty dang".
Jimmie looks over at his phone that was now ringing. He picks it up and answers it in a serious tone, not usual to his relaxed and playful manner even when talking to Oliver.
"What do you need, Oliver?" Jimmie answers.
"We're here at the customer and their refusing the load and our professional services! Let them know!" Oliver snarls on the other line.
"Their not refusing", Jimmie assures, "there's something bad happening there and it needs to be handled. Find a place to shut down for the night, you won't be marked late. I'll let you know when it's clear."
"But what about-" Oliver starts but Jimmie hangs up the phone before he could finish.
"That son of a dog hung up on me!" Oliver says offended and in disbelief. "He's paying us layover, that hat wearing hound!"
"Hey, I wear a hat." Andrew points out.
"Shut up and watch what you're doing back there!" Oliver snarls. "Actually, get out of the seat, you're time is up! Hurry, before you get a violation!"
Andrew and Oliver switch seats and Oliver shows just how masterful and impatient he was behind the wheel. He shoots back in reverse with almost no regard for any oncoming traffic but luckily there wasn't any, and he was able to back out into the street without incident and smash off down the road.
"We are now to find a place to shut down and wait for that nonsense to be over." Oliver says. "Pull up that smartphone of yours and find a nice comfy motel or something for us. And something good, not no one or two star raggedy, roach and rat infested shithole. If I'm going to be waiting, I'm going to be relaxing in comfort."
Andrew quickly finds a nice relaxing looking Inn that just so happened to fit some of the terms that Oliver used to describe his desired experience.
"I got this place", Andrew says, "It's called, the Comfy Cow Inn. Its got all four stars and seems to have great reviews. Looks comfy too. Only four miles down the road."
"Then there we shall go." Oliver says.
And so, Oliver drives the truck down towards The Comfy Cow Inn while they wait for whatever was going on at Beauty World to be handled…