Uh, I mean..."that's a shame, Dear."

My daughter sold her place around the corner a year ago this month. She moved into one of her Boss's apartments while her new place was being built.

The Dear Old Dad Moving and Storage Company had low bid on the move so I wound up with a raft of her stuff crammed in odd nooks and crannies around the place. Among said rift of shat was her small freezer. 5 or 6 cubic feet worth. Been living in my basement and running off my meter for a year, give or take a couple of days.

She moved into the new place this Spring, and just today conned two of the guys where she works into coming down to East Overshoe and lugging her freezer up to her new abode. Dear Old Dad had already lugged what was left of the contents up to her new place and cleaned the old freezer out.

Fellers loaded it up into their truck, and strapped it up nice and snug against the tailgate so it wouldn't move.

Apparently, on the way from East Overshoe to Shanty La, the tailgate came open...

Amateurs!

They said they were just grateful that no one was behind them.

I expect a small chest freezer hitting the asphalt at 60 or so MPH was pretty entertaining.

Just got an update from daughter-san.

Seems I had the story wrong, the freezer didn't fall out of the truck, they had it facing the wrong way and the lid blew open and then tore off.

Doh...

I was driving behind a guy when I lived in Kansas. He had a full sized upright freezer in the back of his pickup, secured with twine. He was a good 20 car lengths in front of me as the ever present 30mph Kansas cross wind caught that freezer. I watched as the twine broke, and the freezer slowly tipped, slid on the sidewall rails of his truck for a few seconds, then rolled off and slid along the road and into the ditch.

My blood boils at people who can't secure their stuff in the back of their trucks.

Was following a truck with full size plywood sheets on the freeway at night. I was content following him. But something made me switch lanes and just as I did, a plywood sheet came peeling off the back of his truck and flew back. It would have hit me.

Most of the times, I see ladders or the mangled remains and people have to swerve around them.

Once while I was driving my car behind a window repair vehicle, planes of glass started coming undone, hitting the road in front of me, shattering all over the place. Luckily it wasn't rush hour so I just moved over.

Once while driving my motorcycle, I was quite a ways behind a truck that had rolls of wire on a flatbed. These rolls were about 4 ft diameter. I thought I was seeing things or daydreaming that I was in some sort of video game because this huge roll came bouncing off the truck, rolling perfectly down the 101 in CA. Seemed like it was so-motion. Again, I just changed lanes & all was fine.

Meant, "slow-motion"

I watched a boat motor come off one of those little hitch-mounted platform things on the back of an RV. It had been tied on loosely with some wraps of rope, but the bumpy road of us weaving back and forth across i15 under construction caused it to get launched right off the hitch thing. the boat motor was still wrapped up in the rope, so it was trailing behind the RV, shedding parts and bouncing all over while the RV was clueless. Didn't help we were in a winding construction zone with 10ft cement barricades on both sides of the two narrow lanes with no pull-outs.
Someone finally sprinted ahead of him and had their passenger wave him down. the 6 or 8 cars that were behind him all slowed as he finally found a turn-off. I had slowed down and fallen behind as to not get involved if an accident occured. I just remember the look on his face as i passed - he had just rounded the corner of his RV and saw the boat motor torn to shreds. He put his hand on his head and raised his eyebrows like he was about to shed a tear.

Over the years I've seen ice chests, recliners, mattresses, a kitchen stove, ladders, a chest freezer, and a full size sofa in varying states of destruction in lanes and alongside I-10 here in Texas. One day on a remote nearly empty stretch I stopped and picked up a huge Igloo ice chest and its lid which had broken off at the hinges. A couple of new hinges and a wash with bleach water and it was almost good as new. Those things are tough.

Most of the other stuff wasn't worth stopping for.

I always feel a sense of relief that I wasn't behind the vehicles that lost their cargo when it took place.

I stop for good stuff,best I ever stopped for was a nice chain from a 18 wheeler that blew my doors off on I-675.
Came off the flat bed a couple hundred feet ahead and skidded right in front of me to the shoulder.

When I was about 5 or 6, ~1978ish we were sitting in the family car, at a traffic light in Rockaway NJ waiting to make a left hand turn. A car went by and his hood flew off! A split second after it hit the pavement a car ran over it, right next to us. I will always remember that.

Many years ago now, a distant relative was killed when a grapefruit size rock bounced out of the back of the dump truck in front of her and right through her windshield.

buddy of mine is a retired state trooper. He has the biggest and best collection of bungee cords you could ever imagine. thirty years on the interstates.

I had a car in front of me lose a square folding table off the roof on the highway once. It wet up like a helicopter 20, maybe 25 feet in the air, the rotation causing the legs to open. It touched down, then proceeded to spin and slide down the highway in front of me. Cars on either side, I couldn't swerve, but did break as hard as I dare not wanting to cause a pile up from the rear. It came right at me, and right on cue , right before I was about to smash into it, the legs folded back down and I passed over it harmlessly.


One of the coolest things I've ever seen was three or four large garbage bags of aluminum cans fall from the back of a truck on that same highway. It was wild, in an instant there was a three lane wide wave of cans washing down the road, it sort of looked like a dumping a giant bucket of water. Then a second later driving through that wave "clipClopPopsliopClipflapPap"..

My pucker moment was:

Driving on a 4 lane pulling a 5th wheel RV. A pickup pulling a utility trailer came flying up in the left lane to get around me before it became a 2 lane. I slowed down a little so that could happen. When he passed me, the suction effect made a 6x10 sheet of 1/4 inch steel plate on the utility trailer stand up. It didn't hit anything or anyone, but it opened my eyes up. Not sure how he got it back after that.

I was on a Houston freeway in the left lane when I spotted a large box full of what appeared to be confetti laying on its side open against the guard rail with the contents spread across the entire freeway. I was doing about sixty and as I was wondering about where one buys large boxes of confetti I realised it was not confetti but I was about to run over thousands of ROOFING NAILS! I was amazed that I only got three flats instead of 4. Dozens of cars affected.

I-70, Indianapolis suburbs, early in the AM, middle lane, a refrigerator. A big one. I had very bright PIAA auxiliary lights on the GW at the time, so I had plenty of time to see and avoid it, plus traffic at that hour was sparse.

Imagine the pile up if that refrig was dropped during rush hour.

I was on the road 25 yrs., wildest thing was around 1980. Remember the old style campers that fit inside the pick up bed? Omaha, I was on the L St. I-80 West entrance ramp, pickup was maybe 3/4 mile ahead of me, really had his foot in it.

I thought I was having hallucinations as I believed the camper was lifting & settleing. Soon the entire camper went airborne, went as high as my windshield frame, I leaned over to see it crash down on an open interstate, no one hurt, just a hellava mess for upcoming traffic to deal with. The driver pulled over, got out & sat on the shoulder.

At our RV resort in Arizona, guy pulls in with his motorhome, comes in to the office to register. Looks out the office window and says "WHERE'S MT CAR?" He left in the motorhome and never saw him again.