Atlas Hugged« albums you should own: matthew sweet/girlfriend | Main | I sit alone and watch one cigarette burn away »
January 9, 2008
truck drivers of the world unite and pull over
as i've mentioned before - it is the nature of my job that i spend countless hours behind the wheel of a car and after nearly 2 years and approximately 120,000 miles driven i've come to the following conclusion - i don't really care for tractor trailers or the men and women who drive them. now some would say that these folks are vital to our economy. what with the transporting of goods large and small across the highways and bi-ways and i guess they do serve some purpose - keeping the cost of manufactured goods down and removing pesky drifters and teenage runaways from the face of the earth. but that doesn't mean i have to enjoy spending my days commingling with them as i make my way around the continent. which brings us to the following harrowing tale.
over the holiday(celebrate) i was driving to north carolina to visit family members i hadn't seen in quite some time and it was a dreary rainy day and the smoky mountains were reminding everyone why they are in fact called the smoky mountains. i was driving comfortably - making good time and totally listening to some sweet tunes on the hi-fi. and even as i was rocking out i was intermittently checking my mirrors for safety. and as i did this i noticed a large tractor trailer roughly a quarter mile behind me in the left lane - which was sort of odd because there were giant words painted on the asphalt that stated pretty emphatically no trucks left lane. and if there's anything worse than a left lane driver it's a left lane truck driver because they invariably cause traffic to back up where'er they go. but since this particualr offender was safely in my rear view i settled for being mildly annoyed instead of completely outraged.
jump ahead approximately 5 minutes and i'm in the right lane and the vehicle in front of me suddenly decides he'd be much happier going 70 mph than the 78 mph he had previously been traveling. i checked my mirror and the left lane was pretty packed and wouldn't you know that damned left lane driving truck was coming right up on my bumper and in his wake at least 15 miserable cars hoping against hope that this heartless bastard would change lanes sometime before 2008. well, i knew that if i let him pass me i'd be stuck in the right lane for quite some time so i made the move. and dude was none too happy that i made said move. he accelerated when he saw my signal and pulled so close to my bumper i could smell the fatback grease on his breath. and then he laid on his horn which was odd because i hadn't given him the patented horn blowing signal.
the second the right lane came he open he whipped over and pulled even with my front bumper and put on his left turn signal and started to drift ever so slightly into my lane in an effort to freak me out i guess. no dice. no doubt he probably thought i was some hapless holiday traveler ignorant to the rules of the road but i too am a seasoned veteran behind the wheel and would gladly have collected the $1 million in insurance money had he run me over. anyway, when he saw that i wasn't going to be rattled he pulled back in behind me and proceeded to ride my bumper. again. so i got back in the right lane and invited him to pass me but he didn't take the opportunity - and so we continued our little dance for a couple of miles until he had to exit at the weigh station.
and i thought it was over. but 30 minutes later he popped up again in my rearview mirror like a spectre from a poorly written horror novel. and at that moment i thought there was a pretty good chance i was going to have to fight for my life and regretted the fact that i had not packed my brass knuckles on that particular journey. and to make matters worse i was running low on fuel so i waited until he was just ahead of me before negotiating a last second exit.
the whole encounter was a great adrenaline rush but it was also monumentally frustrating. because at no point did i see this person's face. i'm not even sure it was a man. whomever it may have been i'm certain that they had the face of pure evil. the company car is so sleek and low to the ground there is often no recourse for vindication when a trucker offends you so eggregiously. sure you can honk your horn but he can honk louder - you can't really angrily ride his bumper to prove a point...well, you can but it's a pretty stupid move because not only can he not see you - there's a pretty good chance you'll lose dramatically should a collision ensue. bird flipping opportunites can also prove difficult - unless you have a sunroof.
which reminds me, i totally need to request a company car with a sunroof or better yet, a convertible. because if you take the time to lower the top down on your car just to let an offender know that you are not happy. well, it makes a pretty dramatic statement. you just have to be sure to keep one hand on that toupee.
| By young_christopher | 8:30 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://atlblogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/11969