Microsoft is an asshole and the lift-truck drive test.

Five today, seven tomorrow was the word last night. I double checked my phone to see the day was indeed Wednesday and then started harassing my shipper/recievers to get me out the door by 5:15.

I don't think they really cared about my tales of woe and an empty fridge but they had me out of there as early as possible. I've got food y'all!

Microsoft is an asshole.

Around my house, if it's Wednesday night and I'm linked up to Yeah Write conversation is not permitted. Wednesday is reading night and I've got a system. I start from the bottom of the grid and work my way up. If I read a post and can't think of a suitable comment on first read that tab gets left open. Once I've made my way through the rest I go back to the open tabs.

So you know what happened last night? Microsoft updated Windows and took the liberty of restarting my computer for me. It's a good thing I also right down each post as I'm reading and whether I've commented or not.

Microsoft is an asshole.

The Lift-truck Drive Test

So remember when I was supposed to test for my lift truck license, only the guy who was certified to do the drive test was sick all week so I didn't have to do it?

I wasn't so lucky today.

It was the first time I had ever even sat on the seat of a lift truck. I did remember to do up my seat belt. Then we ran through the levers. There's three of them. One for up and down, one to tilt forward or back and one to move the forks from side to side.

There's also turn signals on the opposite side of where mine are on my car, and a gear shifter (?) for reverse, neutral and forward on the left of the steering wheel which seems pretty ass backwards to me.

Wanna know what else is ass backwards on a lift truck? The wheels are. The front ones are fixed and the back ones turn.

Ever driven a pick up truck on a slippery day with no weight in the back? That is what it feels like to steer a lift truck moving forward.

In my day, I've had my share of fun with driving a pick up truck. You know, giving the gas pedal that goose that will have the ass end swinging around just right to go around a bend. But that was on purpose.

On the lift truck, I just felt like I was losing control.

So the tester told me to try it out going in reverse. Did I mention I have a stiff neck today? So first mistake (in reverse) I put my hand outside the cage to try and turn my torso enough to see behind me. That's a no-no. You could crush your hand doing that if you backed into something.

Next up was lifting a pallet. Only to pass the test it's a pallet stacked on another pallet. I wimped out and lifted the bottom pallet. And drove around in reverse - because forward wasn't working so well for me.

I won't be loading trucks anytime soon because I flunked, but if you ever need someone to drive a lift truck backwards, I'm your girl.

Tonight it was five today, eight tomorrow but I don't really care since I'm now booked off until Monday morning. 

Now I'm off to finish reading and commenting on the grid. You should check us out here, because I'm one of the editors picks!!!! And if that isn't enough over the top awesome, I also made it onto the The Best of the Grids!