Truck Baby

I thought today that I should drive across the country in our truck. By myself. I thought about it for a lot of miles driving from Milwaukee to Dayton, sitting up nice and high, looking down into people’s cars, being all tall and powerful in our truck.

I thought about getting better road clothes, you know, a little rougher looking, not quite Harley, which I think is overdone, but along those lines. Road clothes, I thought on that for a while. Where would a person buy such things, I wondered. I liked my outfit, though, my jeans and my black zipped sweater, the high neck had an effect on people. I could feel it. That old broad with the truck? She’s lookin’ good. So many thoughts on the road.

I thought I should go to a Waffle House, pull in to  a spot on the far side of the parking lot so I could keep an eye on the truck from the booth where I would eat bacon and eggs with white toast and a lot of butter and jam in those little packets. I’d pull my phone out of my back pocket to keep myself occupied, send a message to overly friendly truckers that I had business. I had business on my phone.

I thought about the joy of passing big trucks in a truck instead of my very small car that I often worry will get sucked under a semi since often when I’m passing semis, I can see their underbellies pretty clearly. Today, there was no underbelly, although I wasn’t eye to eye with the semi drivers, I was regarded as their comrade. I could feel it.

I thought about life on the road, what it would take and whether I’d get tired of it. When I was thinking this, a giant blaring pink semi with Dolly Parton writing on the side passed going the other direction and it occurred to me that that chick had probably started like me, just driving an F150, and then she traded up. Stranger things have happened. Just so I wouldn’t forget where I started, I thought I should take a picture of my first truck ride. So I could remember it well.