The Great Floods of Aught 5

Because somebody has to be available to shuttle mattresses around the greater bay area 365 days a year, and because I wasn't on call for Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, I had to be on call for New Years weekend. I wasn't too worried about it. Over Christmas there were hardly any calls and the tech only had to go out twice. My luck wasn't nearly so good.

By Friday night I had 3 Sacramentos and 2 Napas. Saturday morning brought an additional Emeryville and a Corte Madera. So despite the fact that I had friends in town, I got up early on Saturday to do all my pickups and deliveries. It turned out to be harder than I thought it would be.

On the way to Sacramento it was pouring and the wind was blowing something fierce. As I passed Fairfield going east on 80 there was so much water coming from the west that the waves were lapping over the concrete divider of the freeway. But things seemed to be holding up, so I continued up to Sacramento.

Maybe 10 minutes later I saw a 90s Camaro do a complete 360 traveling at roughly 70 mph. It was truly amazing. All of a sudden his headlights started to rotate toward me (I was in the fast lane, and he was one lane over), but his speed and direction of travel stayed the same. The Camaro smoothly spun around as it glided across 2 lanes of traffic, finally ending up facing the right direction and damage free on the shoulder. If you set a photograph of a car on an air-hockey table I think you'd get roughly the same movement, which is kind of serene if you don't happen to be driving 70 mph.

One of my destinations in Sac was a pickup as somebody's house. I had called them Friday evening and asked if 11am or so would be a good time to stop by. The lady said that it would, and that's when I showed up. I knocked on the door and listened for signs of life as I checked the door to make sure I was at the right apartment. Maybe 5 minutes later an enormous woman in a night gown answered the door. I stated that I was there to pick up the air mattress, and she grunted and waved me toward a bedroom. In the bedroom with the hospital bed and mattress were two sleeping people. Not wanting to wake the two sleeping people, I didn't turn on my pump to deflate the mattress, nor did I turn on the light so I could adequately see what I was doing. Alas, my efforts were all for naught as about halfway though getting the mattress off the frame, enormous woman #2 (the sleeping one), opened an eye, grunted at me, got up and shuffled into the kitchen where she let out a soul-shaking belch.

I gathered everything up and took it to the van, and came back to have my paperwork signed. While Enormous Woman #1 signed off on the pickup, and Enormous Woman #2 let out another seismically significant burp, Enormous Woman #3 (who hadn't been awakened by the burp noise nor vibration), rolled over and started snoring like her esophagus housed a garbage disposal and somebody was trying to force a spoon down there. As icing on the cake, when I left the house I noticed that I smelled like an ashtray.

When I left Sacramento my boss called and told me that Napa was flooding, and the guy in Corte Madera called to say his power was out. So I put all those off until Sunday and set my sights on Emeryville. No problem I thought. I'll get home a little early I thought. I kind of have to pee, but I'm cruising along and I can wait until Emeryville I thought. Then I hit the traffic.

While I had been listening to a David Rakoff book on tape and not listening to the radio, a levy had broken near Fairfield and 80 was closed in both directions. This, apparently, was the same water I had seen lapping over the divider earlier in the day. And now I was stuck in the after effects, averaging .5 mph, no exit in sight, and bladder that was seriously questioning my Emeryville bathroom decision.

I had encountered this situation once before while stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge. But in that case I had the distinct advantage of having an empty water bottle handy. No such luck this time. In the spirit of MacGyver I looked around my van for something that might come in handy. And there it was: the candy dish.

During the holidays my company gives out candy dishes with our name and phone number printed on the side. I had been eating the candy out of one during the week, and it was sitting on the passenger seat. With no other options available I empted the remaining candy onto the seat and transformed my candy dish into the worlds smallest plastic urinal, complete with a convenient handle. And since the candy dish doesn't have a screw top, and since there was an awful lot of waste water on the freeway already, I dumped it out the window. Nobody was the wiser, and I felt 100% better.

And that, dear readers, was how I spent New Years Eve day.