Shipping Wars

[Dave (imported)]

There is this dumb program on cable called Shipping Wars that I use as noise to keep me company when I'm on the throne…

The premise is that certain shipments are very unusual and the struggles of the drivers is supposed to be entertaining..

So little entertains, nowadays...

Tonight, one of the truckers had a shipment of five 1000 to 1500 pound pumpkins 9big orange things) and he had one slide off the back of the truck because he didn't tie it down properly. Needless to say, the pumpkin broke into pieces. It was smarter than the trucker.

It reminded me:

When I was a sophomore in college, a classmate had a job in one of the nuclear chemistry laboratories. The radioactive isotopes and chemicals were kept behind lead walls that were built from lead bricks -- 2 inch by 3 inch by 6 inch and about 15 pounds each.

During the move, a pallet of one ton of lead bricks slid off the truck. A one ton pallet of lead brick isn't too big either.

It grazed a car (gouged the bumper real good) and embedded itself 6 inches deep in the asphalt.

The pumpkin just broke apart.

As soon as I hear that this one particular trucker won the bidding, I knew that the pumpkins asses were in deep danger… He was the one who checked into a hotel with two chimpanzees. That didn't work out too well, either.

The lead bricks didn't break. The bricks that the asphalt stuck to were not usable because no one wants a lead shield with a slight peephole in it.

BTW -- apropos of nothing, I once saw the "Swedish National Enema Contest" on late night HBO in a hotel years ago.