A fleet message is going out on this totally dead evening, asking for a volunteer to earn waiting time for Kaiser. I'm dialing before the message is finished. The dispatcher does his best radio-announcer voice: "Congratulations, you are the first caller!" He tells me to go to Kaiser Interstate lab and run its deliveries out to Kaiser Sunnyside in Clackamas as needed, with our $30-per-hour wait time in effect when I'm not driving.
This is odd, as Kaiser has its own couriers, calling us only when there's overflow. When I get there, I find out what happened. One of the machines they use for testing is down. Normal turnaround time from Sunnyside is two hours. If someone is having a heart attack in the emergency room, two hours is far too long to wait for blood-chemistry results. I'm there to ensure this doesn't happen.
The first hour, I run out to Clackamas twice. The rest of the time, I'm glad I always bring something to read in the cab. I could go on about the virtue of certain British music magazines over ours-no ads, no coverage of Britney and her ilk, much coverage of fringe artists and genres, thoughtful writing. I read MOJO and Uncut for about three hours, earning $100. Tough old life, this.
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