Hello there Spankos!
Wow, 2 posts in one week? I’m really on a roll now! (Insert sarcastic half-smile.)
So I had something else in mind to share with you today, something more spanko related. However, I thought I’d share with you what happened to me this morning to start my Monday, the valuable life lesson I remembered from my late Father, and the takeaway from today that could possibly help you in more than one aspect of your life. Whether that be your professional life, personal life, and hell maybe even your spanko life as well!
I’m going to start with the story of what I went through this weekend that culminated with this morning. Now a disclaimer, I do realize you’re here for spanking-related content since, oh I don’t know, this is a spanking blog perhaps? I know this is supposed to be the biggest theme of this blog, and it certainly is, but it’s also a place for me to share my life experiences and ongoings with you as well. Call it therapeutic writing or call it venting, whatever. I like to share various parts of my life with others. If this doesn’t interest you at this time…hey, you don’t have to read it, it’s all good! There’s plenty of spanked butts to look at on other posts of this blog and other blogs and websites out there…you do you! Although I promise I do have a point to all of this that will in-fact be translated into our spanking lifestyle…just please bear with me for a moment!
So as you all know by now, I drive a truck for a living and I absolutely love it. It’s a great lifestyle and a great living if you work hard enough at it. Some days it can be extremely easy and enjoyable, and some days it can really seem like you’ve put in a full day’s work. It all started on Saturday when I received a new assignment going from Huntsville, Arkansas to Chicago, Illinois. I didn’t have to deliver until Monday morning and I was getting loaded Saturday night. Arkansas to Illinois is easily a one day’s drive so I was confident I was on easy street for the rest of the weekend.
Now the load assignment for this new load told me to pre-cool the refrigerated trailer I was hauling before arriving at the shipper, and it told me to cool the trailer down to -10 degrees Fahrenheit for frozen food. No big deal, I quickly did just that and arrived at the shipper around noon. I waited three hours for a dock door and they finally had me loaded with whole turkeys for Thanksgiving around four in the afternoon. By this time in the day, I already picked up and delivered a load of food in the morning and delivered it in Oklahoma, so I’ve been up since 3:30am at this point. I was pretty tired, hungry, and I was in a rush because another truck was being sent into my dock door. I quickly closed the trailer up, got my paperwork straightened out and away I went. I ran out of driving time shortly after I left so I parked on Saturday, drove all day Sunday, and made it to Chicago Sunday night and spent the night at the receiver.
When I woke up the next morning at four am and backed into the dock door to be unloaded, I quickly got notified that something was wrong…the load was supposed to be fresh meat, NOT frozen!
This has never happened to me in two years of driving! I’m usually so careful. This is really a serious thing, you can’t be delivering food in the wrong temperature…especially 42,000 pounds of turkeys! I thought for sure I was about to be fired, at the very least have to pay a fine that would put me behind for months…deductibles on insurance claims for ruined truckloads aren’t cheap!
After apologizing to the receiver, and offering to thaw out the load by turning on the heater, I waited for several hours (five to be exact), in a holding area while the management talked things out over whether or not they would accept the load. I was totally messed up in my head during that time…Why wasn’t I more careful?!
After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, the receiver knocked on my driver door and told me to back the truck into the dock from earlier…they were taking the load. Oh, thank God! I come to find out there were two things that saved my bacon…or turkeys…whatever. One, I had managed to thaw the turkeys enough to where they were still in decent enough shape to be accepted, and two, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and this small meat packing facility is desperate for turkeys right now!
Right as I got unloaded my dispatcher sent me a message…it basically said she needed to see the paperwork I gave to the receiver because she just got a call saying the paperwork said one temperature and my truck said another. Well here it goes, time to face the music…and here’s where it got interesting.
I told you earlier there was a lesson I remembered from my late Father. Here’s where it comes in. When I was an early teen, my Father and Mother already were divorced for several years and this was around the time he broke up with his girlfriend and we were actually on our own for once. This was a great time for us, because we really got to spend some quality one-on-one time together and my Dad taught me a lot of really insightful things about life that I probably wasn’t ready for at the time, but he knew he wasn’t going to be around to teach me later when I would have really needed it. He was 48 when I was born and died shortly after his 69th birthday when I was 20. So overall, he knew from day one he wasn’t going to be around very long.
There was something he told me when I was around 10 or 11 that has stuck with me and I remembered it again today when my dispatcher confronted me about the botched temperature fiasco. He told me that everyone makes mistakes, we’re all human and we’re nowhere near perfect no matter how much we strive towards that goal. When you make an honest mistake, admit the mistake! Be as upfront and honest as you can and just own it! People are going to be more upset if you come up with excuses or try to push the blame onto someone or something else. No, the dog didn’t eat my homework…I just didn’t do it!
This was something I struggled with for years after he said that to me. It’s something that is great in theory but hard to swallow and actually put into practice the way he intended. You would assume, and be correct, that we learned things like this as children in our school days. Being honest and not telling lies is one of our key fundamentals we learn while growing up. Some of us have a harder time learning that than others, but it’s something that everyone learns.
However, the way that my Dad put things into words, it was like he was warning me of situations exactly like this one. You know, as a truck driver, and as an Independent Contractor, you’re actually given a lot more freedoms than you can expect. Sure our trucks are monitored by GPS and we run on electronic logging devices, but most of the day to day planning and running of our trucks and businesses are left up to us. My point is, I could have easily fabricated some elaborate story about how it was everyone and everything else’s fault but my own, or maybe even besides my own…but this is exactly what my Dad was trying to teach me…just admit you’re human and you made a mistake!
So that’s exactly what I did. I responded to my dispatcher and simply told her “hey, it was my fault, I just made an honest mistake because I cut corners from being lazy and in a rush”. You see, my company has a lot of rules, protocols, and redundancies to make sure this exact situation doesn’t happen…and we follow those procedures every single time. I’ve found numerous errors between what the sales people wrote down as the temps and what the actual shipper wants the temp set at, and I’ve always caught it during these fail-safe procedures that we do. But guess what? I didn’t do it this time…remember when I was in a rush on Saturday and tired and just wanted to end the day? I simply didn’t check the temperature on the actual paperwork and I put into the computer and told the dispatch person on the phone that it was set to frozen, I’m good to go. Nothing more than pure laziness.
So what did my dispatcher say? Sure she gave me this stern warning about mistakes like that costing not only myself but her a lot of money, but she also said that she found out about what happened and my name was attached to it she knew it had to be a mistake…because in two years of working with her, I’ve never once come close to making that mistake before. I’ve made it abundantly clear through words and actions that I love my job and I take great pride in it, and she would be the first one to back me up on that statement.
Okay, so I learned my lesson…don’t be lazy and double check your temperatures and don’t cut corners. But now I can hear you all saying “But Jon, you said this would relate to the spanking lifestyle! How?!?!”
Well, I’m glad you asked my spanko friends!
You see, I’m a big believer that nobody in this world is perfect. We are all beautifully flawed in our own special ways, and that not only makes us unique, and human…but it makes the world fun too. How annoying and boring would things be if we were perfect and didn’t make any mistakes? Where’s the drama in that? We love our soap operas and reality TV! When we transfer into our spanking lifestyle, we have this expectation that everything, and more importantly, everyone, is going to be perfect. Then the sad reality hits us that not only are things not perfect between couples are partners, things can get downright ugly, confusing and scary at times. This is where patience and strong communication comes in.
I believe that in any type of power-exchange relationship, whether that be a spanking relationship, BDSM relationship, vanilla relationship (yes, there is power-exchange in a vanilla relationship too!), or whatever type of relationship you can encounter where two people exchange control of power, open and honest communication is an absolute must!
And you know, I believe the first step to open and honest communication is to let your partner in on a little secret…you’re not perfect!
As Spankos (or whatever name you choose to define yourself as a spanking enthusiast/fetishist…more on that another time!), most of world and lifestyle revolves around an idea revolving around in our head…a fantasy. We usually have the image of the perfect play partner and scenario playing out in our head. The stern Top, the obedient bottom, the right implement that hurts “just right” in the fantasy that we create.
But then what happens? We meet that someone who seems perfect, and then something happens. Something is said, something is done, all of a sudden we are jolted at of our fantasy and back into reality. It can be something as simple as calling your bottom by a pet name that he/she is disgusted by (ie. bitch, slut, whore, etc.) that hurts their feelings and degrades them. Or even worse, it takes them back to an abusive situation from the past. Even though you may have had only the best intentions and just wanted to spice things up a bit…you’ve made an honest mistake.
Here’s another example I’m sure most spankos can relate to, especially bottoms. What happens when you’re being spanked (with a belt perhaps?) and that one time the belt accidentally lands off the intended target and it hurts? I mean really fucking hurts! Bam! You’re jolted out of that pre-conceived fantasy of how things were going to play out. Again, it wasn’t intentional, just an honest mistake.
So what do you do? As a Top? As a bottom? Do you mention it? Do you let it go? Do you stop and talk about it? Do you bring it up later? I’m not going to tell you what to do because you’re free to live this lifestyle however way you choose as long as it doesn’t physically or emotionally damage another. However, I would highly recommend you don’t let things like that go. You need to talk about them.
This is where my Dad’s lesson comes in. I promise folks, there is a point to all this rambling, and if you’ve stuck it out this far, I congratulate you! The lesson that he taught me and what I’m trying to pass to you, fellow spankos, is you have to admit you’re human and you make mistakes!
When you as a Top accidentally offend your bottom with an offensive pet name…apologize and admit you made a mistake. Bottoms, when that wayward belt stroke lands on your hip or lower spine and they apologize and admit they made a mistake…acknowledge they’re human. People, especially spankos aren’t perfect!
Open up and communicate honestly with each other. I promise the more you do, the easier things will become for your relationship and dynamic.
I’m not going to keep giving you examples, I know we’re all adults (consenting ones at that!) and we can figure out what does and does not constitute as a mistake during our spanking play and discipline. My point is that we can create a lot less tension and drama if we just open up and become incredibly honest with each other. Yes, it might lead to some heartache. That perfect Top or bottom that came into your life might not be so perfect and shiny once you start getting real with each other…that’s okay. You can either choose to work through those shortcomings together as a couple or partnership or unfortunately you might just have to say goodbye…and that’s okay too. There’s plenty of spanko fish out there in the sea. We all have to find our own happiness in this lifestyle because that’s the key reason why we do it in the first place. It makes us happy.
Thanks for coming along on my late-night rambling fest. If you’ve made it this far, I’m very proud of you! (Insert round of applause here.) Please stay tuned for a future post where I tell you about my own journey of becoming more open and honest with Mrs. Welts and how our dynamic has changed dramatically over the last two years!
Thanks for stopping by and as always, happy spankings!
A Spanko World! 