Five Years of Boobs and Middle Fingers!
It’s the night before New Years Eve, and in one more day 2009 will become 2010- it’s the perfect time for reflection. I had been wanting to write about something to do with five years, but as I stand in my hotel room I struggle with the math. Before long I’m having an argument with myself, out loud, trying to make sure I got my numbers right. It’s hard to remember sometimes, exactly how many kids I have, let alone their birthdays. Heck, I probably would not remember my own name if it wasn’t stamped on the side of my truck.
Anyway, a fly on the wall in my hotel might have thought I’ve lost my marbles as I stood there having a verbal argument with myself. “How long have at I been at my present company? Four years. Wait? Are you sure? It can’t be that long. What was your hire date? Don’t remember other then it was the first of November. It must be four years. Is that possible? Could you really hold a job that long? Yes, I’m sure of it because next November marks five years and you score an extra weeks vacation! Okay then, it must be four and I hope you make it to five because clearly you are losing your mind.”
Both sides of my mind finally end the argument and come to the conclusion that yes, I have been trucking around with furniture for four years as of November 1st 2009. I had a good year and a few months at Schneider National before that and if my math is right, I am now qualified to celebrate my fifth anniversary as a Professional Driver!
It’s amusing when I look back to the very beginning of this career, when I first got assigned a big orange truck five years ago in Carlisle, PA. The first thing I did was purchase a CB Radio from the company store, hook it up in the truck, then sit back and think “Yeah, now I’m a trucker!”
Five years later, I have a much better radio that I hardly turn on because I can’t stand half the nonsense that comes out of it. Turn on a radio these days and you get to hear a lot of people talking that either lacked proper attention as a child and/or never had an electronic toy in their childhood. It’s a handy tool when used properly, but otherwise it was one of the first lessons I learned as a trucker: The CB’s not all that’s it cracked up to be.
After I installed the CB in my first truck, I took a deep breath before I embarked on my first trip and tried to mentally prepare myself for all the things that I was likely to experience, things like getting this huge combination backed in tight places (and even easy ones at first), navigating large cities with skinny roads suitable only for the Horse and Buggy’s they were built for and even the wrath of Mother Nature. I even considered the more traumatic things like displays of boobs and middle fingers!
Oddly enough, given my Movie Star good looks and Superstar status, I never once saw a single boob while driving around in a big orange truck which suited me just fine. Any red blooded American Man will tell you that having to endure that sight from a passing motorist is really a horrific thing to endure and will stay in your mind, haunting you for all of eternity. For some reason, once I scored a sharp black and gold truck that perhaps better matched my Movie Star good looks, the boobs began to fly. And they haunt me to this very day.
I still remember the first one. That’s not a typo, I saw just one the first time. Bear with me as I tell the story, it was so traumatic that it will be a struggle to continue.
It was a difficult Friday somewhere South of Pennsylvania, and as I drove home heading West on the PA Turnpike I was soon approaching my exit to 176 North. I was reaching down on the left hand side of my seat to lock it in from it’s shock absorbing back and forth motion. As I did I glanced out the window and saw a minivan outside my window. Riding shotgun was a Soccer Mom type of lady and I noticed she had sly smile on her face. This caused me to do a double take and when I looked at her again, I noticed she was pulling down one side of her shirt and exposing one boob right at me. I was completely horrified, not only because I was forced to view a strange Woman’s breast, but because I only saw one. This was completely inconsiderate of her, I thought, what if I had some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder? I’d have no choice but to chase her down and demand to see the other boob if my disorder required I see things in pairs- and if I wasn’t able to catch her I would be even more traumatized then I already was!
As soon as it was over and I exited the Pike, I did what any normal man would do and called my Wife immediately. She answered right away and I quickly started to share my experience with her. “Hun! Hun! I saw my first Boob!” I hoped she would see me as a real trucker now, kind of like those truckers in the Smokey and the Bandit movies. They certainly were real truckers and they had to endure such terrible things just like I was now. My Wife didn’t seem all that excited about my story and for some reason didn’t even want all the details. I’d be forced to suffer alone.
A few months after that, I was trudging along 84 East in Connecticut, running a shuttle load up to our covert company outpost in Massachusetts. It was a rainy dreary day and I was just kind of cruising along minding my own business when all of the sudden I hear a vehicle near me, honking it’s hood off. I turn to look and immediately wished I hadn’t. Right off my drivers side window was a black Suburban with tinted windows. Unfortunately for me, they weren’t dark enough and I was forced to see a young blonde haired woman doing a topless dance in her passenger seat. Repeat phone call to wife, repeat her not being interested in my most recent trauma.
The rest of that Connecticut shuttle load trip had me comparing the two horrific episodes. One was an older woman with a sly smile, and one was a much younger energetic college aged girl. This led me to question other convictions of my life: I have always been a fan of the so called “older woman.” I wondered if at sometime, there will be a tipping point where my views might go the other way. When I’m 80 years for example, who would I admire more, the one hundred year old lady or the 20 year old college student. I thought about this for hours on end and this is one more thing I learned after five years of trucking: Driving alone for hours upon hours each day gives your mind plenty of time to ponder all kinds of interesting things!
One of my latest close encounters of the motorist kind had me thinking for sure I was about to be offended by breasts yet again, but amazingly, it was even stranger. Heading North on 87 just above Albany, New York, an older Suburban hood appeared off my right side and just kind of hung there. After awhile I looked down to see why it was it was hovering in such a formation. I noticed a pretty young Blonde in the passenger seat giving me the air horn gesture. I always oblige the pretty girls and cute kids with such a request when it is safe and on that day it was. I did a quick “toot-toot” and planned to look away as quickly as possible if she even made a move towards her shirt as I didn’t want good times turning into bad ones. Everyone knows boobs can turn a fun filled day into a ruined day.
After I blasted the horn a quick few times, she smiled and laughed, then did the completely unexpected. She held up a sign that was big enough to read and it contained a phone number. I looked over at my pen in the cup holder and back at her and struggled for a moment as to what I should do. I quickly decided to pass on calling her, gave her a smile back and shortly thereafter they moved quicker than me into the distance. What would I say if I had called her? “Hello, this is the truck driver you gave your number to, how may I assist you?” Perhaps she was a fan and wanted me to stop for an autograph. After pulling over she and her cohorts would proceed to rob me blind followed by a beating, mostly likely worse then the one my Wife would give me after finding a strange girls phone number in my phone (not that it has ever happened!). I sure was glad, as pretty as she was, that she remained fully dressed during our encounter!
What about the middle fingers, also known as the one finger salute? I’ve had to endure my fair share of these and caught my first one within my first year while still driving the big orange truck. I was heading south on 95 en route to a customer located in the suburbs of Philadelphia. This was in the pre-GPS days so I only had my map and company provided directions along with a few prayers. At some point there were confusing signs, 95 over here and 95 over there and there was what seemed like twenty lanes to choose from. I began to do the ‘over here, over there’ lane change dance and some lady flew in front of me and gave me the finger. This seemed horribly mean and unfair to me. I began to yell inside the cab “Easy lady, I don’t mean to be weaving all over but I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I NEED TO GO AND THIS TRUCK IS TOO DARN BIG” and of course all the while I was sweating profusely. I went all the way into Delaware before I realized I should have took ‘over there’ instead of ‘over here’. That day taught me the importance of laying out a good plan when it comes to knowing where you’re going in a huge truck and even to this day I still occasionally get it wrong. When that does happen, I’ve also learned the importance of remaining calm and finding a safe place to get turned around. Good deodorant helps too.
Another time I was near Clearfield , PA trying to get back to the highway when I realized I was in the wrong lane and needed to get into the left lane on the hurry up. A pickup behind me saw my predicament, my turn signal and drove slowly alongside me so I couldn’t move over. The dude actually gave me the finger through the back window as he finally passed. It was a rude and unnecessary thing to do and I wondered if the pretty girl sitting next to him knew she was with an insensitive jerk. I secretly hoped when they got where they were going she immediately left him for someone who is a more considerate driver and by default, a much better partner, not to mention, person. You can tell a lot about a persons personality through their actions on the road.
My last middle finger story is a heck of a story. Not only did I get the one fingered salute and not fire back, but the shooter actually called ME into my company. That entire story deserves to be told in it’s entirety, and I’ll share that tale next time.
Middle fingers are and will always be a part of my life now that I navigate such a large vehicle all over God’s creation. I don’t intend to collect them, but sometimes through circumstance I’ll be bound to receive more. I try to operate with the following mantra: at the end of the day, I want people to remember that nice looking black and gold semi piloted by the driver with Movie Star good looks. I avoid doing anything that would make them remember our encounter on the road in a negative way, but sometimes people are more concerned about themselves and a big truck is nothing but an obstacle in their way. I think my intentions are in the right place.
Getting back to the CB: I often hear a lot of drivers complain about the cars (a.k.a.: four wheelers) on the road. They do this, they do that, none of it good. Not once have I heard someone compliment the hundreds of other perfectly well behaved drivers on the road that we interact with on a daily basis. I think people focus too much on the negative in their world when there is so much more positive around them. That’s another thing I learned so far, someone in a car will always let me move over when I need to and people on the road are generally good. Sure, I see a people do dumb stuff on the road but they are far outnumbered by the people who do good stuff. On multiple occasions, I have had complete strangers in cars, or on foot, stop to help me out when I’ve gotten myself into a pickle. I could fill a book with stories of goodwill from complete strangers who have had enough compassion to see what I have gotten myself into and offered a helping hand.
All truck drivers (and even car drivers) would benefit from understanding the “Transportation food chain.” It’s a simple concept that goes like this: A Big Truck brings a bunch of stuff to a big place. The big place then breaks it all down and people come in cars and take away their share of the stuff. Without cars, people wouldn’t need trucks. And without trucks, people wouldn’t need cars. We depend on each other and should act accordingly when out on the road.
There are more boob stories and more middle finger stories, but not a whole lot. My current boob to finger ratio is nearly even though both are equally horrible things to experience out on the road. One seems to be mistakenly offered in goodwill as compared to one being just a mean spirited gesture. I’ll leave it you to figure out which one is which.
I ‘ve learned a tremendous amount in five years and continue to strive to learn something new in every day given to me. I realize I’m only in the infancy of my trucking career but already have greater aspirations for the coming years. Where will I be five years from now? If someone told me five or ten years ago what I am doing now, or how happy I would be, I’d be hard pressed to believe them. I’d be perfectly content if I am still delivering furniture five years from now but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if I was doing something entirely different. I’d be even less surprised if I wasn’t driving anymore but still involved in the trucking industry in some type of capacity.
One more thing (amongst many) that I have learned after 5 years on the road: Even when you do everything right, the chance always exists that something bad can happen. There’s a story behind that and I’ll share that after I share the amazing middle finger story. After five years behind the wheel, I still have a lot of stories to share, and more being made each week.
Here’s to five fun filled years and I hope there are many more (without boobs or middle fingers please). Safe travels and Happy New Year!
Anyway, a fly on the wall in my hotel might have thought I’ve lost my marbles as I stood there having a verbal argument with myself. “How long have at I been at my present company? Four years. Wait? Are you sure? It can’t be that long. What was your hire date? Don’t remember other then it was the first of November. It must be four years. Is that possible? Could you really hold a job that long? Yes, I’m sure of it because next November marks five years and you score an extra weeks vacation! Okay then, it must be four and I hope you make it to five because clearly you are losing your mind.”
Both sides of my mind finally end the argument and come to the conclusion that yes, I have been trucking around with furniture for four years as of November 1st 2009. I had a good year and a few months at Schneider National before that and if my math is right, I am now qualified to celebrate my fifth anniversary as a Professional Driver!
It’s amusing when I look back to the very beginning of this career, when I first got assigned a big orange truck five years ago in Carlisle, PA. The first thing I did was purchase a CB Radio from the company store, hook it up in the truck, then sit back and think “Yeah, now I’m a trucker!”
Five years later, I have a much better radio that I hardly turn on because I can’t stand half the nonsense that comes out of it. Turn on a radio these days and you get to hear a lot of people talking that either lacked proper attention as a child and/or never had an electronic toy in their childhood. It’s a handy tool when used properly, but otherwise it was one of the first lessons I learned as a trucker: The CB’s not all that’s it cracked up to be.
After I installed the CB in my first truck, I took a deep breath before I embarked on my first trip and tried to mentally prepare myself for all the things that I was likely to experience, things like getting this huge combination backed in tight places (and even easy ones at first), navigating large cities with skinny roads suitable only for the Horse and Buggy’s they were built for and even the wrath of Mother Nature. I even considered the more traumatic things like displays of boobs and middle fingers!
Oddly enough, given my Movie Star good looks and Superstar status, I never once saw a single boob while driving around in a big orange truck which suited me just fine. Any red blooded American Man will tell you that having to endure that sight from a passing motorist is really a horrific thing to endure and will stay in your mind, haunting you for all of eternity. For some reason, once I scored a sharp black and gold truck that perhaps better matched my Movie Star good looks, the boobs began to fly. And they haunt me to this very day.
I still remember the first one. That’s not a typo, I saw just one the first time. Bear with me as I tell the story, it was so traumatic that it will be a struggle to continue.
It was a difficult Friday somewhere South of Pennsylvania, and as I drove home heading West on the PA Turnpike I was soon approaching my exit to 176 North. I was reaching down on the left hand side of my seat to lock it in from it’s shock absorbing back and forth motion. As I did I glanced out the window and saw a minivan outside my window. Riding shotgun was a Soccer Mom type of lady and I noticed she had sly smile on her face. This caused me to do a double take and when I looked at her again, I noticed she was pulling down one side of her shirt and exposing one boob right at me. I was completely horrified, not only because I was forced to view a strange Woman’s breast, but because I only saw one. This was completely inconsiderate of her, I thought, what if I had some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder? I’d have no choice but to chase her down and demand to see the other boob if my disorder required I see things in pairs- and if I wasn’t able to catch her I would be even more traumatized then I already was!
As soon as it was over and I exited the Pike, I did what any normal man would do and called my Wife immediately. She answered right away and I quickly started to share my experience with her. “Hun! Hun! I saw my first Boob!” I hoped she would see me as a real trucker now, kind of like those truckers in the Smokey and the Bandit movies. They certainly were real truckers and they had to endure such terrible things just like I was now. My Wife didn’t seem all that excited about my story and for some reason didn’t even want all the details. I’d be forced to suffer alone.
A few months after that, I was trudging along 84 East in Connecticut, running a shuttle load up to our covert company outpost in Massachusetts. It was a rainy dreary day and I was just kind of cruising along minding my own business when all of the sudden I hear a vehicle near me, honking it’s hood off. I turn to look and immediately wished I hadn’t. Right off my drivers side window was a black Suburban with tinted windows. Unfortunately for me, they weren’t dark enough and I was forced to see a young blonde haired woman doing a topless dance in her passenger seat. Repeat phone call to wife, repeat her not being interested in my most recent trauma.
The rest of that Connecticut shuttle load trip had me comparing the two horrific episodes. One was an older woman with a sly smile, and one was a much younger energetic college aged girl. This led me to question other convictions of my life: I have always been a fan of the so called “older woman.” I wondered if at sometime, there will be a tipping point where my views might go the other way. When I’m 80 years for example, who would I admire more, the one hundred year old lady or the 20 year old college student. I thought about this for hours on end and this is one more thing I learned after five years of trucking: Driving alone for hours upon hours each day gives your mind plenty of time to ponder all kinds of interesting things!
One of my latest close encounters of the motorist kind had me thinking for sure I was about to be offended by breasts yet again, but amazingly, it was even stranger. Heading North on 87 just above Albany, New York, an older Suburban hood appeared off my right side and just kind of hung there. After awhile I looked down to see why it was it was hovering in such a formation. I noticed a pretty young Blonde in the passenger seat giving me the air horn gesture. I always oblige the pretty girls and cute kids with such a request when it is safe and on that day it was. I did a quick “toot-toot” and planned to look away as quickly as possible if she even made a move towards her shirt as I didn’t want good times turning into bad ones. Everyone knows boobs can turn a fun filled day into a ruined day.
After I blasted the horn a quick few times, she smiled and laughed, then did the completely unexpected. She held up a sign that was big enough to read and it contained a phone number. I looked over at my pen in the cup holder and back at her and struggled for a moment as to what I should do. I quickly decided to pass on calling her, gave her a smile back and shortly thereafter they moved quicker than me into the distance. What would I say if I had called her? “Hello, this is the truck driver you gave your number to, how may I assist you?” Perhaps she was a fan and wanted me to stop for an autograph. After pulling over she and her cohorts would proceed to rob me blind followed by a beating, mostly likely worse then the one my Wife would give me after finding a strange girls phone number in my phone (not that it has ever happened!). I sure was glad, as pretty as she was, that she remained fully dressed during our encounter!
What about the middle fingers, also known as the one finger salute? I’ve had to endure my fair share of these and caught my first one within my first year while still driving the big orange truck. I was heading south on 95 en route to a customer located in the suburbs of Philadelphia. This was in the pre-GPS days so I only had my map and company provided directions along with a few prayers. At some point there were confusing signs, 95 over here and 95 over there and there was what seemed like twenty lanes to choose from. I began to do the ‘over here, over there’ lane change dance and some lady flew in front of me and gave me the finger. This seemed horribly mean and unfair to me. I began to yell inside the cab “Easy lady, I don’t mean to be weaving all over but I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I NEED TO GO AND THIS TRUCK IS TOO DARN BIG” and of course all the while I was sweating profusely. I went all the way into Delaware before I realized I should have took ‘over there’ instead of ‘over here’. That day taught me the importance of laying out a good plan when it comes to knowing where you’re going in a huge truck and even to this day I still occasionally get it wrong. When that does happen, I’ve also learned the importance of remaining calm and finding a safe place to get turned around. Good deodorant helps too.
Another time I was near Clearfield , PA trying to get back to the highway when I realized I was in the wrong lane and needed to get into the left lane on the hurry up. A pickup behind me saw my predicament, my turn signal and drove slowly alongside me so I couldn’t move over. The dude actually gave me the finger through the back window as he finally passed. It was a rude and unnecessary thing to do and I wondered if the pretty girl sitting next to him knew she was with an insensitive jerk. I secretly hoped when they got where they were going she immediately left him for someone who is a more considerate driver and by default, a much better partner, not to mention, person. You can tell a lot about a persons personality through their actions on the road.
My last middle finger story is a heck of a story. Not only did I get the one fingered salute and not fire back, but the shooter actually called ME into my company. That entire story deserves to be told in it’s entirety, and I’ll share that tale next time.
Middle fingers are and will always be a part of my life now that I navigate such a large vehicle all over God’s creation. I don’t intend to collect them, but sometimes through circumstance I’ll be bound to receive more. I try to operate with the following mantra: at the end of the day, I want people to remember that nice looking black and gold semi piloted by the driver with Movie Star good looks. I avoid doing anything that would make them remember our encounter on the road in a negative way, but sometimes people are more concerned about themselves and a big truck is nothing but an obstacle in their way. I think my intentions are in the right place.
Getting back to the CB: I often hear a lot of drivers complain about the cars (a.k.a.: four wheelers) on the road. They do this, they do that, none of it good. Not once have I heard someone compliment the hundreds of other perfectly well behaved drivers on the road that we interact with on a daily basis. I think people focus too much on the negative in their world when there is so much more positive around them. That’s another thing I learned so far, someone in a car will always let me move over when I need to and people on the road are generally good. Sure, I see a people do dumb stuff on the road but they are far outnumbered by the people who do good stuff. On multiple occasions, I have had complete strangers in cars, or on foot, stop to help me out when I’ve gotten myself into a pickle. I could fill a book with stories of goodwill from complete strangers who have had enough compassion to see what I have gotten myself into and offered a helping hand.
All truck drivers (and even car drivers) would benefit from understanding the “Transportation food chain.” It’s a simple concept that goes like this: A Big Truck brings a bunch of stuff to a big place. The big place then breaks it all down and people come in cars and take away their share of the stuff. Without cars, people wouldn’t need trucks. And without trucks, people wouldn’t need cars. We depend on each other and should act accordingly when out on the road.
There are more boob stories and more middle finger stories, but not a whole lot. My current boob to finger ratio is nearly even though both are equally horrible things to experience out on the road. One seems to be mistakenly offered in goodwill as compared to one being just a mean spirited gesture. I’ll leave it you to figure out which one is which.
I ‘ve learned a tremendous amount in five years and continue to strive to learn something new in every day given to me. I realize I’m only in the infancy of my trucking career but already have greater aspirations for the coming years. Where will I be five years from now? If someone told me five or ten years ago what I am doing now, or how happy I would be, I’d be hard pressed to believe them. I’d be perfectly content if I am still delivering furniture five years from now but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if I was doing something entirely different. I’d be even less surprised if I wasn’t driving anymore but still involved in the trucking industry in some type of capacity.
One more thing (amongst many) that I have learned after 5 years on the road: Even when you do everything right, the chance always exists that something bad can happen. There’s a story behind that and I’ll share that after I share the amazing middle finger story. After five years behind the wheel, I still have a lot of stories to share, and more being made each week.
Here’s to five fun filled years and I hope there are many more (without boobs or middle fingers please). Safe travels and Happy New Year!
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