We Love Our Trucks

We had a Dodge Ram pickup truck. Then we bought a S110 Chevrolet pickup. It is generally understood that I do my go-for errands in the pickup and Anna drives the sedan.

Pictured above is Rocky with his new Toyota pickup truck he bought. It was his first vehicle purchase. Years and dents later he still owns it. He doesn't drive it much any more, he prefers to drive his little hybrid he bought... better gas mileage.

While Adam needed a way to school he commandeered his grandfather's 1960 Ford Pickup and did a good job customizing it with speakers and I don't know what all, but it looked good. He bought a Saturn.

I suppose I am the only one that hasn't outgrown the feel of a truck.

Today - so far

My day so far:
Not bad. I didn't build Rome, but I didn't tear it down either.

First I walked on the treadmill and watched some off-beat movie on one of the STARZ stations - it was good at the moment. There, while looking out in the yard my neighborhood hawk swoop down and went up quickly. It had its wings upward, like shaped like a V pointing at its chest. I think we are probably minus one chipmunk now.

Then I ran 2.75 miles. I have all kinds of little gadgets on me when I run, a pedometer, a MP3 player, and a heart rate monitor. I would tell you how long it took me to run 2.75 miles but you might say, "Wait! Did he say he was walking or running?"

Then I bought groceries. Today is senior discount day. 5% off is nothing to sneeze at. I learned a trick. If the cashier sees you holding your coupons he/she will want to deduct the coupons before the 5% senior discount is applied. Nothing doing! 5% off the total figure is more than 5% off the net figure after the coupons. Today a little Asian girl was the cashier. I bet she doesn't way 80 pounds. She had some new rose color lenses small glasses on. I complemented her on her glasses. She seemed pleased that someone noticed. She said that will be $68.blabla. I asked her did she deduct my senior discount. She then did. Then she told me the new figure and I said, wait, I "forgot" the coupons. So, she deducted them grudgingly. I don't know why they are so protective over these amounts - it is not like she is stealing. So, with the coupons the figure came down to $46.blabla. $22.blabla savings over Anna's coupons and my crafty age discount. Not bad, not bad.

Speaking of Rose Color glasses, yesterday Anna was complaining about something negative about work that effected her and I gave her another slant on it, which was more positive. She said, "May I look through your rose color glasses, please?"

Then I went home and had a sliced tomato and onion sandwich. I haven't had one like that since last year. The sweet onion and the tomato complemented each other.

Then I balanced our checkbooks and piddled with some genealogy.

And then I took the truck to an emission control place and had it tested. It passed. The guy ahead of me, in an old raggedy Honda or something with stickers and ping dents did not pass. He got mad with the tester and shouted at him. The tester just kept rushing around doing his job. The guy in the bad old car had a good built and had a tee-shirt on that said, "Personal Trainer". Did that mean the tester was about to get a personal whipping?

No, finally the guy got his car and drove away in a huff. But I drove away happy because I passed... listening to a CD of a combination of New Orleans music.

Surveying the Waiting Room

Last week a van rear-ended my truck. I got out and the lady got out. She was very nervous, I suppose she thought I was going to give her a good chewing out and sue her. I saw no damage on either vehicle, so I told her to forget it. We didn’t even swap names or insurance companies.

Then Monday at the post office parking lot a man came up and told me my tail light was out. The first thing I thought was the lady that hit me, that sudden jar must have knocked it out.

Then I promptly forgot about it.

I was reminded when my wife was talking about carrying her car in for service. So, early this morning, before I forgot again, I took the truck in to the Chevvy dealer to have the tail light replaced and the oil changed, it was about time anyway.

They told it would be about 45 minutes. I brought a Stephen King book along expecting a stay. So, I went to the waiting room, poured myself a cup of coffee and hunkered up for some uninterrupted reading.

After a while I began to look around me in the waiting room. Curiously enough, there were 4 men and 4 women sitting there. One woman was on her cell-phone getting some of her office calls out of the way. One woman had an old fashion ringed notebook, making entries and more entries, I don’t think she stopped. Two of the women had laptop computers or maybe one or both had those electronic notebooks I heard about, but either way, there were working while waiting. Three of the men were watching TV and I was reading.

That makes four women that brought their work with them to do while waiting. And it makes four men that did not.

Although to give us males a little credit, it looked as if all four of us were retired. We have already been turned out to pasture, so no more workee.

When my kids were teenagers I used to wonder why they dressed like they did, like a certain type of uniform for their certain group of friends. One son dressed preppy with name brands, very yuppish. The other one wore a lot of black, pants drooping, and hair down to his neck. Both of them were wearing clothes they found pleasing to their peers.

So, here I and three other men, probably all retired, with our certain look. As far as I know none of us knew either other. We each had on tight-ass Levis, sweat-shirt or tee-shirt with a light jacket, and a baseball hat that mostly covered the forehead.

I was just as guilty as my two sons, “dressing the part.”