Almost Pancaked

I went to Choctaw Landfill on Saturday in my Dad's truck to dispose of a wall that I replaced on the outside of the house. I usuallly love going to the dump. It barely smells and is in constant motion. In fact, I brought Alexandra with me to see it. She was fascinated.

That's when it happened. We drove up to the actual dump location and an old fella told us to back it on in. The whole time we were backing a machine that is almost exactly like this one:


was moving garbage. This isn't that odd since, as I said, the dump is always in motion. As I back up, I notice that the 5 foot diameter metal, pointed tires are coming closer to us. In fact, directly at us. I couldn't drive the truck away since we were in reverse on the edge of a garbage pile. So I just had to watch.

The old fella ran over a screamed at the driver and the "trash smasher" stopped within a foot of the truck. That is as close as I think I've ever been to dying.

So what possibly could have made the driver of said "trash smasher" so distracted? The heat you say? Nope. He was on the damn phone. He didn't even turn to see what was behind him before going into reverse. He was quite mad that his conversation had gotten interrupted.

Let me repeat that... He was mad that he had to stop talking on his cell phone in order to prevent him from causing my accidental death.

Luckily he messed up again and when he finally drove away from the truck he slammed into an excavator when he wasn't looking where he was going again. Note that he still didn't hang up the phone. I am going to contact the operator of the dump today and hopefully have the guy taught a lesson.