Nobody gets rich driving a truck, it seems. Ask me how I know.
Still, I made the run down the coast, did an overnight before the long run to the east coast with a double. Then overnight, up the next day unless there was a wait for the next load, then back to the west coast.
It takes about 10-12 days normally and no real set schedule. Sometimes I can make up time in the midwest, my biggest ticket so far is 88 MPH. I would have been going faster if my rig would, to be honest. I was 20 hours down on that trip.
I learned my lesson after a few of those, though.
My wife Debra took all of that in stride, in the early part of our marriage she would be ready and waiting and we made love all over the house for a few hours. Our house was always neat as a pin, hell, there wasn't even any piles of laundry anywhere, no dirty dishes, I couldn't even find any dust.
I guess you would have to call me content.
Debra mentioned once that she got bored being all alone for so many days at a time, I jokingly jested that she get a boyfriend.
I expected to hear instant rejection of that idea but there was hesitation before she told me she could never do anything like that.
Then she surprised me by asking me if I ever had any "outlets", as she put it, while I was on the road.
My mind flashed to Maria, the cute little thing at the loading dock in LA. I had asked her to dinner several months back and she agreed, one thing led to another and...well, you can figure out that part of the story.
I never was worth a shit at trying to lie and Debra knew me well enough to see right through my expressions, so I didn't even try to. I just told her about Maria.
Debra didn't ask me about any more so I didn't mention Carol, the waitress at the coffee shop back east.
The truth is there was a couple of others here and there along the way, all free and for fun except one that asked for a $50 bill first.
That one was worth one heck of a lot more than $50, but she was in fucking Idaho. That's how I got 20 hours down on that one trip, too.
Debra just nodded, I think she already knew anyway. I told her I understood and if she wanted to "do something" as I put it I didn't really mind that much, I just wanted to know about it.
I didn't figure she would, and she vigorously insisted she never could so we both let it drop.
I should have figured that it was odd that she didn't throw a screaming fit, she didn't. Everything stayed perfectly normal. House neat as a pin, everything taken care of, and ready to fuck like a mink the minute I walked in the door.
Life was pretty much every bit of all right, it seemed.
About the only thing I noticed is all of a sudden she got into a candy company's toys, trinkits, little fat plastic things with faces and arms, dispensors, if you can name it she had one. They were everywhere in the house, after a few trips I actually noticed and asked her about them.
"It's just my hobby, collecting those." Debra told me.
"Oh." I said, and dismissed that. We had a computor over in the corner, I even had an email address but I seldom looked at it. I didn't need any Viagra or Rolex watches anyway. And I sure as hell wasn't going to send the shipping cost for the 10 tons of Gold some Nigerian had tucked away in his basement his government didn't know about.
I actually did email the motherfucker back, told him I had my own fucking truck and would haul it for free. Funny thing, he didn't answer me.
I didn't figure Debra was spending much money on those things anyway, they were all just pieces of plastic shit.
Then it was time for vacations, most of the time Debra and I went camping, something we could afford. Most of those trips we just sat around the camp or screwed in the tent, that was fun. I even went fishing once, caught a funny looking brown thing that a guy nearby told me was good to eat. I tried to skin it but ended up with one of it's spines stuck in my hand.
Fuck that, I gave up fishing.
Then that last trip we went to Reno. Debra had talked me into that because some collector club she was part of was having a convention there.
She went to some meetings but that bored the life out of me so I wandered around looking at everything. Mostly the cocktail waitresses, my god they all had lots of boob showing.
I was playing some silly 25 cent slot machine and actually hit it for $150. I was high as a kite at that until I figured out after we got home that it cost me $250 to win the $150.
It's hard to do much math when a person is drunk, those waitresses in the black gowns with their titties sticking out the top just kept bringing drinks.
Debra and I were having a pretty good time. She even found one of those candy toy trinkets in a shop, bought it for $30 which floored me. It was just a piece of fucking plastic. Then I remembered answering the door at home to a snotty delivery driver bringing those things. There seemed to be no end to them, too.
$30.00...???? Good Lord, Debra must have 300 of them!
But I put that out of my mind, I wanted to go play that 25 cent machine some more, that was fun listening to the thing go "dingdingdingding" as it racked up 600 quarters. It had those double and triple pay things on it too, and if I could just get two of them lined up......
After dropping $40 with no success I went looking for Debra, I wanted to get something to eat. I spotted her talking to some guy between some machines, I was on one row and she was on the next row over. It was a bit hard to hear with all the racket, I don't know why those places have a half dozen songs playing at once but they do, bells everywhere.
I stopped and listened when I heard the guy say "How does 5 sound?" and Debra just giggled. Then they turned and headed off down the row as I hurried down the line to get to the other side. They were gone by the time I got there, I headed off after them and saw them go into an elevator on the other side of the casino. I was way too late to catch up, so I watched the light.
It stopped several times on the way up, then at the 16th floor it started back down, arriving empty. I had no idea which floor she had gotten off on, so I had nothing to do but wait. I wandered off and found a 5 times pay quarter machine that was sitting where I could see the elevators.
It was two hours and $200 later when she came back down alone, I was fit to be tied.
"Where did you go?" I demanded.
"Oh, I ran into a collector that likes the bigger pieces." She said, smiling at me. She did have that silly bracelet with all of the candy toy danglies on it, so I guess that made sense.
"But why go with him?" I was still suspicious.
"Oh, he had some of the really expensive ones that I can't afford, I wanted to see them."
"Oh. Ok. Let's go eat."
We were back home and everything seemed normal, then about a month later when I left for the yard to pick up my rig, it was sitting there with the hood up.
"She dropped a rod." The mechanic told me. I listened, it was running but making a loud clanking noise.
"They are bringing in another rig, but it will be tomorrow, everything else is out."
"Why not bring in another carrier?" I asked.
"No rush on this one, cheaper to wait. Plus trucks are short anyway."
So I was all done, what the heck, I got in my pickup and went home.
The minute I walked in I knew, I stepped over to where I could see them. Debra was on her hands and knees and that snotty delivery driver I didn't like was hosing her pretty good.
Right smack dab in the middle of my living room carpet.
There was a bit of a fuss, let me tell you. The delivery driver lost his sneer, and Debra and I split the sheets.
There was quite a long period where I just went to work and drove, my mind blank because if I got to thinking I got upset. My house seemed empty when I was at home, I had actually gotten used to those damn toy trinkits.
I never got used to doing my own laundry, it didn't take very long and I had piles here and there. Every once in awhile I just stuffed it all in garbage bags and went and bought some new stuff.
Now I probably have to say I wasn't really crazy in love with Debra. I just liked her, plus she really was fun. I missed her when I was home but I didn't miss her at all on the road.
At least that was what I told myself. Then one day I sat down at the computor and spotted the bookmark for one of those online auctions sites. I started poking around there, curious I looked at some of the trinkits. I saw one that I had never seen before, so just fucking around I set up an account and posted a bid. I called myself "bigdog" with some numbers behind that because when I tried for "bigdog" there was already a dozen or so named similar to that.
What the fuck, 99 cents, I could afford that. A few hours later I turned the thing back on to check out some porno sites I had discovered, there was an email telling me I had been outbid.
Just fuck! I went in and looked, the damned thing was up to $6.00 and somebody called "DDgirl" with a bunch of numbers behind that was ahead. I bid $10.00, that should fix that.
It wasn't an hour later and I was beaten again.
Now I was pissed off. I went up, ddgirl went up. I started to hesitate at one bid, it was $95.00, but I clicked and sent it.
We were down to under 5 minutes left, we went back and forth. By then I had discovered the proxy thing so I posted a bid that would choke a fucking horse, then the screen loaded and I had won.
For $475.00 fucking dollars! I must have been out of my fucking mind!
I was thinking that maybe I just wouldn't pay for the thing, whoever was selling it could always sell it to someone else.
But I never did have it in me to not keep my word, something my dad had instilled in me as a boy with his big leather marine belt.
Sighing, I wrote the check when the bill came in, I was licking the envelope when I heard the email ding.
"Hi, bigdog, I see you like to collect too? Want to sell that? ddgirl."
I kinda did.
"Maybe, make me an offer." I fired back.
"I have LOTS to offer, big guy." came the response with lots of smiley faces.
Now what the hell had I run into? I wondered.
