Elevator Shenanigans

A harvester’s biggest foe is monotony. Everyone in a crew drives around in circles; for the combine drivers it’s clockwise around a field, for the truck drivers it’s the same route from the field to the grain elevator and back 15-20 times a day. Every crew member has his own way of breaking up the day. We’ve all listened to the entire contents of our iPods a few times. I’ve recently resorted to listening to the ridiculously bigoted Fox News talk-back, pretty popular here in the mid-west.

When we were cutting around Isabel Kansas, Tim (another truck driver) and I came up with a new pastime. We both admitted to having a bit of a crush on one of the girls working at the elevator, so we set up a competition to see who could get to know her the quickest.

You only get about 15 seconds contact each time; ducking into the office with your field name on the way in and then picking up your docket on the way out. Added to the challenge was the fact that our girl was very shy.

I was the first to get her name. There was nothing smooth about it. She came out of the office with my docket and, in a cloud of dust and shouting over the roar of the engine, I met Lisa. There must have been a tone of urgency in my voice because she looked pretty startled, like I was getting her in trouble.

Tim made a breakthrough when she gave him a complimentary Kansas Wheat calculator. I thought he may have had the upper hand, but following him over the weighbridge, I was given one too.

It got to late in the day and I got a rush of blood to the head. I decided that Timmy and I needed a portrait with Lisa. It was a semi-inappropriate proposition but I put it down to a you’ll-only-be-here-once moment. I went over the weighbridge before Tim and caught her before she went back into the office and stuttered some stupid story about capturing elevator memories. She was up for it, so I parked and when Tim came over the weighbridge we held up the scales while we ‘captured the memory’.

The next day things were pretty quiet in the office. We found out later that her dad worked in the office. I think he gave her a talk about not associating with harvesters. Any more photos and I think Timmy and I may have been leaving town with shotgun-peppered trailers.

The competition continues; who can get the most candid shots with elevator staff.