Skip to content

don’t do it

A pantechnicon pulls into the receiving bay of the hotel next door every morning then loads up with used sheets and towels, this is after the drives eases down the back end using the vehicle’s hydraulic system. Then he rolls the large plastic tubs containing the soiled items onto the tray prior to lifting it and pushing them inside.

Yesterday the back end wouldn’t go back up so the driver, for some reason, rolled the truck out of the bay and stopped it in the middle of the road. Then he climbed out of the cab, walked to the side of the truck and started to push the buttons that controlled both the raising and closing of the back gate.

Don’t do it.

Nothing happened so a phone call was made and in a little while a panel van pulled up alongside the truck and Mick the Mechanic hopped out, had a chat with the driver, grabbed some tools and a length of hydraulic hose and slid under the truck. The driver wandered back to the control buttons side.

Don’t do it.

The various liquids that govern lifting systems in large trucks are famous for two things, no, three, they are under immense pressure, the liquids are  viscous and oily and above all extremely hot. So Mick has to be careful about letting all that loose.

Don’t do it.

Mick had been under the truck for five minutes when the driver did it, he pushed the riser button and about five gallons of steaming hot oil gushed out of the now disconnected hydraulic hose and all over Mick.

Who screamed, scuttled out from under and grabbed a sheet from the back of the truck, wiped himself down then walked slowly up to the driver, intent on a word.

Think of half a hundred words you would use in these circumstances. Well Mick used about a thousand and all of them spat into the driver’s face together with the hot oil remaining. It was operatic, dramatic. You could sell tickets.

 

 

No comments yet

go ahead