The Butterball Turkey hotline

Years ago on the series West Wing there was an episode which involved the Butterball Turkey hotline. I've never called it (I assume it exists), but at just after midnight this morning my cell phone went off with a call from our night dispatch.

"But I'm on time off!" I protested.

Apparently, the Butterball plant in Carthage, Missouri was shutting down for the weekend but they were willing to stay a bit late if I could bring them an empty trailer for a load planned out on Sunday. My plan was to come back on Sunday but I wasn't about to get up out of bed, drive to my truck, drive my truck an hour down the road, drop off my empty, then bobtail back an hour then drive back to the house because someone at HQ messed things up.

Later in the morning, at a decent hour, I phoned in and spoke with my dispatcher. Mixup, blah blah blah, thought you were coming back today, blah blah blah. Okay, now what?

It turns out we are very short handed (trucked?) in Omaha this weekend so my orders were to deadhead all the way back up there and let dispatch know when I would be available.

Option 1: Stick to my original schedule, leaving early on Sunday morning and arriving in Omaha around noon with about four hours to drive for the rest of the day.

Option 2: Leave mid-afternoon on Saturday, arriving in Omaha that night then having eleven full hours to drive for all of Sunday.

I went back and forth for a while but finally the money side of my brain won out and I got packed up and moved back into the truck. About seven hours later after driving through snow and ice (not the funnest thing when you are hauling an empty trailer) I arrived safely in Omaha, Nebraska and shut down for the night.