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Nov
19
Five reasons to hate talking to other drivers
Filed Under Hedon, Maggie, Road stories
Written by: Hedon Where we are: Still in Irving
Well our brand new truck still isn’t fixed so we were standing around outside today while it was in the shop. This ended up with us talking to other TWMNBN drivers and as usual that was a mistake. I guess it’s probably not true about all truck drivers, but many of us do not play well with others. Also, it seems as if truckers are the most gossiping group of people this side of Edna Mae’s Beauty Barn on “Buy two hair colors get the bikini wax thing thrown in for free” Fridays.
So what with the (polite) arguing about politics, the outright misinformation about our own job, and the general half-wittedness of the day I have several good reasons to once again vow to never shoot the crap with truckers again… and one excellent reason to do it all over again tomorrow.
Reasons to never talk to truckers again:
>> Old boy who informed me that the economy is in such bad shape because Obama won the election. He insists that the really big companies are now scared of Obama and are moving overseas. My clever line of logical reasoning which was chiefly based on the fact that the economy has been in deep crap for a long time and was crashing all over the place before Obama was elected moved him not at all. Hard to have a civil conversation with someone when they think the President-elect actually wants them to work for free and send their whole paycheck to the Mexicans. I’m not sure exactly how the Mexicans fit into the whole nightmare situation… or why Obama wants us to send them our paychecks… or if I should send mine to a specific Mexican family or just general delivery to any post office in Mexico. Numb-nuts!
>> Next was the fellow who spent 20 minutes explaining to us how teams at TWMNBN are paid. Even though we had already told him we drive team. We drive team for TWMNBN… don’t you think we know how we are paid? Ugh. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
>> Then we had Mr. I-Know-All-The-Company-Dirt who told us a bunch of really shocking things about TWMNBN and the current situation. It was all a little overwhelming until — as the conversation went on — you realized he was just another driver who didn’t know any more crap than we did. Oh he had heard things… he had heard the hell out of lots of things… but he didn’t KNOW anything to speak of. Don’t get me wrong the things he was saying were shocking. And if they are true they point to an economy in even worse shape than I had imagined… but as it is it’s just a big old pile of unconfirmable crap. Which I find maddening because enquiring minds want to know, damn it.
>> Then we had Mr. I’ll-Tell-You-How-It-Is cause you’re just two innocent babes in the wilderness. This was the guy who told us he was waiting on the results of the testing to get his medical certification back. He informed us that he had just had a “sleep apathy” test which the doctor required because he was overweight. Then he proceeded to tell us that starting January first you won’t be able to get a medical card if your body mass index is over 25. Now… as someone who’s BMI is probably 94.2 this news was quite alarming to me. There we were out there at the picnic tables with no internet available to research this bit of news and being told that we won’t have a job in May when our medical comes up for renewal.
>> I did later get online and I couldn’t find anything except if you’re overweight you will have to have the sleep apnea test to get your medical card. I could have missed something but you would think the parking of every trucker who’s BMI is over 25 would be pretty big news. I mean if people thought Y2K had the potential to make a big impact on our society… this would be HUGE. Truckers aren’t generally known as a delicate or dainty group as a whole. Then that got me to thinking about all the fat people out there in society in general and how nobody gives a crap if they all have sleep apnea on the highways. Then that got me off on how truckers are treated like crap and regulated to within an inch of our lives and in ways that no other profession in America has to deal with. I mean a surgeon can pull 34 hours of ER duty and go into surgery, screw something up, kill the patient, say “I’m terribly sorry about your loss, ma’am”, and go home to watch Monday Night Football with the boys. But a trucker who has driven 11 hours and twenty-three minutes immediately after sleeping for nine hours can be sitting still at a stop sign, get rear-ended by a bunch of speeding drunken teen-aged boys and that trucker is likely going to prison or at the very least he’s losing everything he has in the civil suits that will follow. See it’s best to just not start this train of thought cause it always builds up a head of steam as it barrels down the tracks…
Anyway, that was our day filled with reason after reason to avoid talking to our fellow drivers. But then that one shining ray of light… that one bright example of why one should interact with one’s fellow man came along and made it all worth while. He redeemed the whole day.
Why you should talk to your fellow drivers:
Maggie was having a good old time being petted by one stranger after another. Maggie truly loves people. She sees a guy across a parking lot and her tail starts wagging as she watches him closely hoping he’s coming over to the truck to pet her.
Unfortunately, because we don’t have any access to other dogs, Maggie is unsure of herself when it comes to them. It’s obvious they kinda scare her, so she doesn’t seem to act however one is supposed to act in doggie etiquette which generally seems to annoy the other dog. She does act all submissive and stuff with most dogs, but she still seems to bring out the worst in them. Completely our fault as she just hasn’t had enough experience with them and I don’t know how to fix it now. So usually I just try to keep her kinda at a distance from strange dogs.
So this guy walked up today with his Beagle on a long leash. The dog seemed ok, but the man seemed seriously sort of… shall we be polite… and say… slow. Yeah. He seemed sort of slow. So he walked up pretty close to the table and as he got closer his dog was able to get to Maggie. She went into her dropped down submissive thing she does and his dog started to growl at Maggie.
Belly-spots and freckles... sure signs of Royalty?
He said to his dog, “Don’t growl at her, Rocky, she’s a pure-bred, too. We don’t growl at other pure-bred dogs.” Then he picked his dog up and waved him around in the air showing us the spots on his Beagle’s belly and telling us that is how you know if a Beagle is a pure-bred dog. He was just blathering on and on about how important it is to have a pure-bred dog while waving his dog around and pointing him first at Stace then at Me then at Maggie so we could all three confirm that his dog did indeed have the tell-tale pure-bred spots on the belly. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to ohhh and awww over the stupid spots on his dog’s belly or not, but I didn’t figure it mattered much to the poor dog. All four of Rocky’s little legs were just flailing around churning in the wind.
Eventually the guy wandered off still muttering about dog heritage and such. Stace and I looked at each other and both said at the same time, “OMG!! A dog racist!!” Well we both thought that he was pretty funny and were thankful he had happened by to brighten our day. But wait… he came back.
He wanders back over to us determined to get the obviously superior dogs to play together or possibly to get them to join together in some mad plot to take over Dallas and run all the mixed-breed dogs out of Texas or possibly just to let them spend a little time quietly talking together about how excellent it was to have belly-spots… I don’t know.
Anyway, Maggie wasn’t having any of it as Rocky had already growled at her a few times the last time he was near her. And Stace wasn’t having any of it, either. So — right in the middle of dog-racist-half-wit’s attempt to force contact between the canine royalty — Stace took Maggie’s leash and started walking off with her to keep Maggie out of harm’s way. Mr. Man was so put out with Stace’s interference on Maggie’s behalf that he said quite loudly and completely out of the blue, “Oh yeah? Well… <sputtering> …your dog sucks!”
Oh. My. God. We laughed so hard. He was really pissed, too. He scooped poor Rocky up again and marched off toward his truck and we didn’t see them again all afternoon. I think the Royal Feelings must have been hurt or maybe he just felt all their pure-blooded goodness was wasted on three obvious low-life heathens like us. I guess we simply weren’t superior enough to hang out with him and Rocky… belly-spots or no belly-spots.
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Nov
16
Written by: Stace Where we are: Texas?
Maggie will be two years old next month. When we first got Maggie, we didn’t know much about dogs. I had dogs when I was a child, but they were outside dogs with their own lives. I’d never had an inside dog whose every breath, it appears, has to be taken in either Hedon’s or my presence. One of Maggie’s nicknames is “Barnacle,” and I tell you she has certainly earned it and owned it.
Because of our inexperience, Hedon and I spent a lot of time watching TV shows like “It’s Me or the Dog” with Victoria Stillwell and “The Dog Whisperer” with Ceasar Milan. We also got some dog training books and the like. We got lucky with Maggie. She’s a sweet dog by nature and hasn’t given us much trouble that we ourselves didn’t cause.
Maggie spent her first three and half months with us at home, since we were taking time off between jobs. One of our biggest goals was to get her potty trained during that time so we would not have accidents in the truck. We honestly thought we might not be able to accomplish the potty training, but she got the drift in time for it not to be much of an issue in the truck.
What with having a lot of time on our hands at home, we started training her early on many other things as well. Maggie (in fact, beagles in general, we have read) is easily motivated by food rewards. It was a snap to teach her to sit, lay down, wait (for a short while), jump up, turn around, etc. Maggie seems to like doing tricks, especially when it means getting little pieces of her favorite treat, dried chicken. Since her early days, she’s learned how to roll over, shake hands/paws, do a high five, and the like. Hedon has been working with her on playing dead for months, and she has recently seemed to finally get it. But who knows. She’s less enthusiastic about tricks like rolling over and playing dead.
Maggie is remarkably smart, knowing a huge number of commands that aren’t tricks but make life easier such as letting go of objects, leaving things alone, getting in the passenger seat, getting a toy, moving out of our way, sitting before getting out of the truck or leaving, etc. I’ve found her capacity for learning and understanding quite wondrous.
Maggie has also been adept at training Hedon and I. For instance, when she wants me to quit typing on the computer and pay attention to her, she’ll sit down next to me then rise up on her haunches in what I call the “Meerkat Pose,” lean against me, and throw back her head and gaze up at me with her soulful brown eyes. It always works. It’s too damned cute to ignore.
She doesn’t use this ploy on Hedon, however. To get Hedon’s attention she simply shoves her head under Hedon’s hand and rubs her head back and forth until Hedon begins to pet her. She has recognized that it’s best to just be upfront with Hedon, while I, apparently, require more sophisticated schemes like the Meerkat Pose.
Maggie’s behavior is by no means perfect, but it has improved dramatically over the last six months or so. We assume it’s because she’s getting older. And though Maggie has learned much, as have we, and while we love her to death, Maggie really isn’t much use beyond being adorable and lovable. And that’s enough, but still … we used to think we might be able to make her useful in some real way.
In the early days, we had thought Maggie would be a guard dog in the truck. Turns out, Maggie thinks it’s her job to guard us from other dogs, domestic animals like cows, and wildlife in general, barking loudly enough to startle away any bear who might be thinking of raiding our cabinets. People, however, are not to be worried about. To Maggie, all people are to be cozied up to, and unless a criminal has a fear of being licked to death, they are free to pilfer our truck at will.
For a short while, we thought we had found a fine job for her: cleaning up pieces of food that get dropped on the floor and bed in the truck. Maggie is great at this, and enjoys making her rounds after every meal or snack, hoovering up most crumbs and the like. However, along with crumbs she winds up eating some of my hair that has found its way to the floor. My hair is pretty long. The result of this is that occasionally when she poops, one of my hairs will have worked its way through her intestines and ends up hanging out her butt with a clump of poop attached to the end of it. This dangling poop always disturbs Maggie (understandable, I suppose, but still), and she then proceeds to butt-scoot her way across the truck trying to dislodge the dingleberry hanging from the hair. And all of this results in much mayhem as we try to pin her down to pull the hair with attached poop clump out of her butt. It’s pretty undignified for everyone concerned, to say nothing of nasty to clean up, and therefore negates the advantage of having an automatic crumb-hoovering dog.
We used to have fantasies that we could train her at home to fetch us fresh packs of cigarettes and Diet Coke, our two staples. Since the kid grew up and moved out, we’ve had to fetch our own stuff, and this has left us in some dismay, what with the fridge being a lengthy 20 feet or so from our recliners. We thought Maggie might fulfill this role, but it was not to be. If we leave the cigarettes where she can easily get to them, she tears them to shreds the instant we turn our backs. And she’s too small to drag a two liter of Diet Coke from the kitchen to the living room, to say nothing of being to short to reach the freezer and fill my glass with ice. This dream has died.
Just when we had given up hope of usefulness, something new has developed, something so wonderful, that I’m a bit superstitious to write it here and perhaps jinx it. Still, I can’t contain my excitement. Here it is: we think that by some miracle, and strange alignment of other training, that Maggie is now capable of retrieving dropped objects for us. Fabulous, you’re thinking! I know!
It’s so irritating to be writing something, and you lay your pen down for an instant and the next thing you know, it’s on the floor. Now you have to move everything aside, get out of your recliner, bend down and get it, then get back in the chair and rearrange everything again. Argh. What a chore.
But now, here’s Maggie. Maggie always hears when something falls on the floor. It now appears that all you have to do is point in the general area of the fallen object, tell Maggie “Get it,” she trots over and snags it, then you tell her to “Come”, and when she does, you hold out your hand and tell her to “Let go.” And she does!!! She puts it right in your hand. I tell you, this is some kind of miracle.
It’s particularly useful when you’re driving. Drop a lighter or something like that and it’s gone until you can pull over and find where it has bounced to and hidden itself, or god forbid, make whoever is not driving get up and come risk limb and neck to hunt around for it. But no longer. Maggie can find it right away. Just yesterday, quick as can be, Maggie retrieved Hedon’s fallen lighter for her. Sweet!
Maggie has achieved four retrievals so far. I’m pretty hopeful that this hasn’t just been a fluke. Can you imagine? Adoreable, loveable AND useful. She’d be like the Holy Trinity of Dog.
And it’s got me wondering. Maybe I’ve given up the dream of Diet Coke fetching too soon. If we had 20 oz. bottles instead of two liters, and kept them on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and somehow attached a small handle low on the fridge door, and had an ice maker installed about a foot above the floor … hmm. It’s worth thinking about.
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Nov
15
Ethics 101
Filed Under Hedon
Written by: Hedon Where we are: Irving, TX
Do you ever think about Ethics? Not like “should I or should I not steal this pen from work” ethics but those abstract ethical questions that people have argued for centuries. The kind of abstract questions that get people all fired up and calling each other names over some fictitious situation. That’s good stuff.
Here’s a famous one:
Is it ok to steal?
No.
Is it ok to steal a loaf of bread if your family is starving?
Hell yeah!
Is it ok to steal a loaf of bread if your family is starving but they’re only starving because you’re too damn lazy to go out and get a job to support them?
Hmmm… back to “No” I guess.
Is it ok to steal a loaf of bread if your family is starving but they’re only starving because you’re too damn lazy to go out and get a job to support them but really it’s not that you’re lazy it’s just that the only job available in your town is working with Patty the Day-time Hooker and you just don’t feel right wearing fish-net stockings and doing the nasty with total strangers?
Uhhh… so is it ok to steal rather than become a whore? Is that the question? I guess so…
Is it ok to steal a loaf of bread if your family is starving but they’re only starving because you’re too damn lazy to go out and get a job to support them but really it’s not that you’re lazy it’s just that the only job available in your town is working with Patty the Day-time Hooker and you just don’t feel right wearing fish-net stockings and doing the nasty with total strangers but the thing your family doesn’t know is that you have quite a bit of cash buried in the backyard under the second biggest elm tree?
Wait… you have cash buried under a tree? Then it’s not okay to steal the bread. Dig up the cash and feed your family, Dumb-ass.
Is it ok to steal a loaf of bread if your family is starving but they’re only starving because you’re too damn lazy to go out and get a job to support them but really it’s not that you’re lazy it’s just that the only job available in your town is working with Patty the Day-time Hooker and you just don’t feel right wearing fish-net stockings and doing the nasty with total strangers but the thing your family doesn’t know is that you have quite a bit of cash buried in the backyard under the second biggest elm tree because you’ve been saving every penny so you will have enough cash to leave town with your accordion-playing boyfriend, Fernando, if he gets his big break and heads off to Broadway?
Who the hell is Fernando? Is he the one starving?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, that’s how it works. I was thinking of another situation that often comes up in the Ethics game but it’s a serious one that involves neither day-time hookers nor starving accordion-playing boyfriends. Many of you will recognize it from the last episode of M*A*S*H where it was portrayed beautifully. For those who didn’t catch it, I’ll give you the set-up although in a far less memorable manner:
Ok… It’s a war zone and you and a whole bus-load of other villagers have accidentally driven behind enemy lines. Realizing the mistake, the driver squeezes the bus into a very thick part of the jungle, shuts the bus off, and radios for help. You all hunker down waiting for help to arrive but it will take hours for help to reach you. There are enemy patrols in the area so you all must be as quiet as possible because if you are spotted by the enemy you will all be killed. Suddenly your baby starts to cry. You do literally everything you can think of to shut Junior up but nothing is working. The other passengers on the bus are becoming frantic because they know that Junior’s crying is going to give your position away to the enemy patrols.
What do you do?
>> As painlessly as possible cover Junior’s face with a pillow — the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one
>> Screw that — I can’t do that to my baby so we’ll all just have to take our chances, won’t we?
>> Eureka! My huge over-developed brain has conjured an entirely different solution which is…
>> I would just go all Ninja on the enemy patrol’s ass and none of this would be a problem
>> Why am I on the bus again? Where was I going in the first place? Is that important?
It’s a classic, huh?
So Non-Haggy-types out there… what do you think?
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