Truckers, Don't Make Me Come Back to Haunt You!

(Courtesy of www.FreeFoto.com )

Yesterday, I nearly (and unexpectedly) joined the Real World Dead (as opposed to the FaceBook Dead, from which I recently arose to live a second life). Real World death is permanent. And we are always just one misstep away from Eternity.

What does this have to do with truckers?

Yesterday, my mortal body was almost life-suckingly mashed inside my Jeep, squashed with my vehicle between a big blue semi and a concrete freeway wall. The Coroner would have had the unpleasant task of prying the remains of my cold, dead hands out of whatever was left of my twisted steering wheel.

Instead of blogging, I would be sending messages of comfort and love from the Other Side to my DH - and haunting a certain dumb-!?#@&! truck driver for the rest of his earthly life. His keys would have a way of disappearing from his pockets. His tires would have a way of going flat in rest stop parking lots. His logbooks would have a way of drawing the attention of regulators.

I would get him off the road.

Luckily, I can't do that. Miraculously, I'M ALIVE!!!
So here's a message to all you road warriors out there:

Mirrors are not the mack truck equivalent of bling.
They have a purpose.
They prevent those missteps that boot mortals into the Hereafter.

Use them wisely, or else.

Flummoxed by a Car Hog

My DH is a Car Hog. When he's in the car, he want's to be in the driver's seat.

Usually, I'm fine with being a side-seat driver. Annoying him keeps me entertained. But when the trip is longer than four hours, I believe in switching off drivers for safety's sake (and to make sure he can move normally the next day).

Car Hogs do not give up the wheel without an argument - a long, exhausting, and often ridiculous argument. (Examples follow.)

"You're blind in one eye," he says, as if that explains anything. The great states of Iowa and Oregon both feel this is not problem; why should he think otherwise?

"The freeway winds through the mountains." Yes, and it goes straight through the valleys. What's your point?

"It's raining." Wow! Like I've never experienced that before!

"I can't relax when you drive." Not my problem. I have a good driving record. Maybe if I drove with you as a passenger more often, you'd relax.

So yesterday, he resorted to trickery.

"You can drive after lunch," he said reasonably. I agreed. I should have been suspicious, but I was hungry.

The rain stopped outside of tiny Creswell, Oregon. He pointed out a sign for a Mexican restaurant. We stopped to eat and he chose a chair facing the restaurant's front window. He lingered over a cup of cinnamon-scented coffee for a while. Abruptly, he decided it was time to leave and took the payment to the waitress.

Outside, it was pouring. "I'll get the car," he said. "No sense in you getting wet, too."

What can I say? I fell for it.
*SIGH*