Plumbing in Las Vegas : How to Make Do When Your Internal Plumbing Goes Haywire

My internal plumbing had gone nuts. We'd thought the worst of the food poisoning was over by the time I was back behind the wheel of the big red Volvo, towing a load of what-I-don't-recall from Montana down to southern California. Just the night prior to reporting for work, I'd passed out in our cabin, fallen off the toilet, and scared the hoozie-doozits out of my wife.

But I was much better now.

Or so I thought.

On the run down I-15, I'd felt pretty good. Not sick at all. A day passed. Two. Leaving the company's Santa Fe Springs (CA) terminal with a heavy load of carpet at midnight, pointing out of Los Angeles County toward Las Vegas, nothing seemed wrong.

By the time we reached the Baker grade, though, I knew I was getting sick again. Relapse. I hate that word; I really do. The bad bar bratwurst had roto-rootered my plumbing end to end three days earlier; enough was enough!

Apparently not.

I had to pull over on the side of the road before topping Baker to grab just a little bit of shuteye. Pam tells me I slept in the seat with the tail end of the 53-foot dry van still angled out into the traffic a bit. It's a wonder nobody smacked us in the butt. The early predawn hour must have helped, but that route is never entirely quiet.

This load, thank goodness, only had to go to the company's Las Vegas terminal. Once the forklift operator had cleaned out the van and the office had signed off on my paperwork, it was time to QualComm a message to my dispatcher: Empty; available for load.

Except...not this time. I could still drive, but things were feeling rockier and rockier. This, I finally had to admit to myself, was going to be a bad one.

Empty. Sick. Heading to Petro (truck stop) at North Las Vegas. Should be okay to drive by Monday.

Peggy, my favorite dispatcher by far, promptly fired back a message telling me to get well; see you Monday.

This was shortly after daylight on Friday.

We made it to my favorite truck stop of all time. Pam also tells me I didn't even try to back the rig into a spot but grabbed the only available opening there was up close to the truck stop entrance for drivers. It had not been taken because there was a post in the middle. A driver could never do a pull-through.

I just pulled straight in, nose-to-post, and shut things down. Behind the privacy curtain, I managed to shuck out of my clothes before crawling between the sheets on the only bunk the sleeper possessed. By Saturday, fevered and nearly in a coma, I would empty out my innards without even knowing I'd done it. You know, sort of like dead people might do.

Spray tan sheets.

Pam would have to sleep in the passenger seat, and she was on her own.

At any given time, there are hundreds of big rigs parked at the Petro. My wife is streetwise but also an attractive, tiny redhead. Despite her many disabilities, she would need to remain ever vigilant when not in the truck cab with the door locked, street-aware of potential thugs, muggers, and potential kidnappers with rape on their minds.

Enter a couple of other truckers who could be trusted. When Pam is on top of her game, she reads people easily, and these men were good reading. One big dude acted as her bodyguard and escort for many of the journeys she made to and from the terminal. Another handed her a ten dollar bill and told her to go play some video poker for him.

That gentleman was far too overweight to do it himself, but he knew my wife desperately needed a break, a bit of recreation to take her mind off of my desperate situation. The truck stop had great plumbing, so she'd spent the last cash we had on us to launder the bedding I'd soiled beyond description.

Before that, one man had asked her why she was sitting in the cab with the engine running to provide air conditioning yet had her nose stuck out a crack in the window.

"Any air but the air inside the cab!" She'd explained, and he laughed heartily. Not at our situation, but in total understanding.

Her main protector, with her man unconscious in the sleeper, asked if she'd like him to reposition my truck, back it out and get it in a slot that would allow me to pull out easily when the time came.

"No way," she told him. "I appreciate the offer, but if anyone has to move it, it had better be me. And I don't really want to get clonked in the back of the head."

Pam can drive. In fact, there was a time when she packed her own CDL, her Commercial Driver's License. But she knew that, unconscious or not, I would still manage to react violently toward anyone touching the wheel of the rig assigned to me.

Kindhearted people in the truck stop offered to buy her some food to take back out to me, but she'd knew I'd either refuse it or at best vomit the stuff right back up. No chicken noodle soup for that guy!

She did, she says, manage to get a few Sprites down my gullet to rehydrate my body at least a little bit. I don't remember.

Monday morning arrived. I was on my feet once again...more or less. Definitely weak; I'd not have cared to arm wrestle a grizzly bear just yet. But the driver's seat heals me if anything can, and we QualCommed Peggy in dispatch.

There was a load available. It was located over the state line, something like 125 miles of deadheading, but they paid me for that. We were good to go.

The fever was down. My internal plumbing seemed to be back in order. I could eat dry crackers and drink soda. My mind was clear, and there simply wasn't anything left inside to purge. We could do this.

Once again, the worst seemed to be over, and once again, Pam had pulled me through.