If you’ve known me for a while then you know I often have rather strange things happen in my world (like the homeless lady sleeping in the elevator, who I thought was dead when the door opened, and when I yelled at her she started chasing me through the parking lot!  Remember?!  ) … well here is today’s crazy story … it has a good ending.  But it all seemed very ominous as it was happening.

Yesterday morning driving to work I saw a tow truck parked on the side of the 56 freeway (on the opposite side of the freeway) with its hazard lights on and I could see the shadow of someone sitting inside the cab.  It looked like his head was hanging forward – like he was taking a nap in his truck at 5:30 am or something?  I don’t know what he was doing – but I noticed he was sitting there.

Fast forward to the end of the work day… when I left work I saw a tow truck, with someone sitting in it, in the exact same place on the freeway.  No movement inside the truck… with its hazard lights on, etc.  At that point I was slightly concerned.  Truck in same place?  Person still inside cab of truck?  It’s now 8 hours later and the hazards are still on?  If my cell phone had been working I would have called CHP and asked someone to check on the truck driver to make sure he was OK.  But alas, my cell phone is very dead currently.  (And I was hoping the truck driver wasn’t dead also.)

So, fast forward AGAIN to this morning – tow truck AGAIN in the same place on the freeway, with someone sitting in the cab, hazard lights on, etc…. and my heart started racing.  Immediately I think to myself – “I HAVE to go check on him to see what’s going on here.  But I don’t have a phone.  If he’s not responsive I’m going to have to flag someone else down to stop and hope they have a cell phone so they can call for help.”  In the meantime, I got off the freeway and back on (in the opposite direction) to circle around and park behind him.  I stopped, with my truck running and lights on, lighting up the back of his truck.

As I walk up behind the truck I can hear my own heart beating in my chest.  And I was praying for this individual… and praying that I wouldn’t find a dead person in the cab of the truck.

Keep in mind… it’s 5:30 am and it’s still dark outside.  I walk up to the door, looking for any movement inside the truck, and all of a sudden a head pops out!  I just about jumped out of my skin…

Thank goodness I could see the whites of his eyes…. or I would have freaked out for sure!  (Deep breath… OK – he’s alive!)  I take a deep sigh and start laughing at him…. he looks confused.  I fumbled to find the words to explain to him the whole drama that was unfolding in my creative imagination and we had a good laugh together on the side of the freezing cold freeway at 5:30 am.  He thanked me for stopping…

Apparently this was the tow company’s favorite spot to park along this freeway… and when the person on shift had some downtime they would park here.   Over the last two days I had seen the same tow truck… with someone different inside of it just waiting for another call.

No this wasn’t a dream… this is just the world I live in…