Uhhhh… as it turns out I was just informed by the love of my life that this is only our 18th anniversary.

Damn it!

Can you believe today is Stace’s and my 19th anniversary?! Sure doesn’t seem possible that it’s been that long. Doesn’t seem like we’re old enough for that unless we got together when we were 7 or something.

And at the same time, it seems like we’ve been together forever. I honestly can’t imagine my life without her — the picture gets all fuzzy and out of focus. Life sure wouldn’t have been a fraction of the fun it’s been without her there by my side. I know couples grow up over the years and things change. Some of them grow apart but I can honestly say that I enjoy her company more today than I did back when we were kids. I am a lucky lucky Butch.

So what did I decide to buy my bride of 19 years for our anniversary? The same thing she wanted to get me:

HagMobile... better gift than a box of sugar-free diabetic chocolates? Yes!

Yup, that’s the potential new HagMobile in the flesh. It looks black in the photo but it’s supposed to be a really dark blue. Nothing is settled yet since they sent us a group of pictures and we could see right away from the photos that the truck didn’t have an upper bunk. Sigh. That was one of the first things I asked him since that is a must-have on our list of specs. He had told me he thought it did but come to find out he was mistaken. So he is now having one installed by his guys.

I was also planning on having him take off the fancy-pants chrome bumper with all the chicken lights and replacing it with a Plain Jane bumper since all those lights cause a tiny drag on the alternator and will decrease your fuel mileage slightly. I’ve never been a chrome-type person anyway. But… the more I look at it the more I think it doesn’t look that bad after all. As a matter of fact, I kinda think I like the look of the chrome one, and I doubt if those little tiny lights would really make that big a difference in our fuel mileage anyway. Good god what’s happening to me?!

Well, whatever we decide on the bumper, when he’s done making changes to the truck, he is going to take it over to the local Detroit to have the Dyno done for us. That should tell us what kind of shape the engine is in right now. Then we will head down there and take it to the Freightliner ourselves to have them go over the truck with a fine-toothed comb.

If everything checks out we will be good to go. Except for the actual purchase, that is. God, I’m dreading that. Stace and I are not wheeler-dealer type people. I know that there are probably guys who could walk into that office, offer him $5,000 cash, a non-running 1978 Honda TwinStar bike, the “actual” cb mic that Jerry Reed used in “Smokey and the Bandit” and $278 worth of coupons for I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter and walk out with a 2006 Pete with 300k miles on it. I’m not that guy. And Stace is even worse than I am. The whole idea of haggling practically gives her hives.

The last vehicle we bought was in 1989 when she bought the Trooper. Basically we took it for a test drive, decided it was the one and said she’d take it. Our one big victory was telling the salesman there was no way she was paying $800 for “undercoating” and getting that taken off the invoice price. Oh, and we also got them to throw in a no-cost full-sized wheel and tire for the spare instead of the donut that was standard. Stunning victories, huh? Haven’t bought a vehicle since. Sigh. That doesn’t exactly build confidence in our wheeling and dealing skills.

So my plan of attack is to get it really checked out carefully at the Freightliner and take a list of everything they find wrong with the truck with me to the salesman. It’s supposed to already be DOTed so hopefully they will just repair everything that needs to be fixed on-site before we take delivery. I guess another option would be for them to drop the price so that we could have it fixed ourselves. Either one would work I suppose.

Oh, and another thing, I ran the VIN through CarFax and found out the truck was in a “minor” wreck in New Jersey in 2005. Couldn’t find out any details about the wreck though. I did notice that the reman was done about four months after the wreck. Also, he sent me the copy of the paperwork for the in-line and, according to the paperwork, the engine only has about 130k miles on it  –  not the 300k he originally told us it had. So it seems like the truck has only driven about 130k miles in the past 4.5 years. That does tend to give weight to his original story that a local old man owned it, rebuilt the engine, bought a new tranny and clutch, got sick and couldn’t drive it much the past three years, and finally sold it to the dealer in the fall. Not sure what bearing all of this should have — if any — on our final decision concerning proper purchase price though.

One possible ray of hope is that I found out the same sales lot has a trailer we might be interested in buying. I sent him an email mentioning this and asked what kind of deal he could give us if we bought both at the same time. The trailer price is slightly higher than I was looking to spend, but if we could get both the tractor and trailer in good shape from the same place that would be awesome. Also, I’m hoping if we buy both I can get him to cut us a deal on the trailer since I know for a fact that it has been sitting on their lot for quite a while.

So anyway here’s where everything stands at the moment:

• Still madly in love with the same old woman.
• Thinking the potential HagMobile looks a hell of a lot better than I expected for the price.
• Wondering if I’m actually becoming attracted to chrome after all these years.
• Hoping the Detroit and Freightliner don’t find anything too dreadful during their inspections.
• Furiously clipping I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter coupons in case I suddenly sprout the wheeler-dealer gene.
• Dreading the actual purchase like it’s a root-canal and colonoscopy all rolled into one.
• Thinking diabetic chocolates would have been a lot less stressful… but also a lot less fun. 

Read this story over at a trucker’s site I hang out at and thought I would post it here. Posting it proves two things. 1) Much like when I was 12 years old, I still believe truckers are in general a good bunch of people. 2) I am a sap.

Enjoy:

A Truckers Story

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy.

But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn’t sure I wanted one. I wasn’t sure how my customers would react to Stevie.

He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs Syndrome. I wasn’t worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don’t generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.

The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded “truck stop germ” the pairs of white-shirt business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn’t have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot.

After that, I really didn’t care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old kid in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That’s why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn’t unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.

A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine.

Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.

Marvin Ringers, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table

Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Marvin a withering look.

He grinned. “OK, Frannie, what was that all about?” he asked.

“We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.”

“I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?”

Frannie quickly told Marvin and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie’s surgery, then sighed: ” Yeah, I’m glad he is going to be OK,” she said. “But I don’t know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they’re barely getting by as it is.” Marvin nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn’t had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn’t want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.

After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I didn’t get that table where Marvin and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pete and Tony were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,” she said. “This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup”

She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed “Something For Stevie.”

“Pete asked me what that was all about,” she said, “so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.” She handed me another paper napkin that had “Something For Stevie” scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: “truckers.”

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work.

His placement worker said he’s been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn’t matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.

Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn’t stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.

“Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,” I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. “Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate your coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!” I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room.

I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. “First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,” I said. I tried to sound stern.

Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had “Something for Stevie” printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.

Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. “There’s more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well.

But you know what’s funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table.

Best worker I ever hired.

Plant a seed and watch it grow.

I may not have a job, and my ass may be permanently attached to my big old recliner, but that doesn’t mean I’m a total loser. Really. You believe me, right? I mean, my god, I’m NOT a BIG FAT LOSER!

All this lazing about, watching TV and playing video games has actually made me a much more refined, intelligent and useful person. I’m a black hole of television knowledge, sucking in all I see, except all that stuff doesn’t get squinched down into unknowable denseness. Maybe black hole wasn’t the best metaphor.

So here’s what I know now that I didn’t know three months ago when I was still a contributing member of society –

1. It is practically impossible to achieve pro status at Wii Sports tennis, but bowling is a cinch, and you get a much cooler ball as a reward.

2. The second season of “Epitafios” completely sucked. Serial killers should be scary, not laughable, unless the creator of said serial killer is Dean Koontz, whose only talent is creating laughable serial killers. I wouldn’t want to deny the guy his living.

3. The favorite new TV word is “journey.” Everyone is going on a journey, even though they are not actually going anywhere. We’re talking a spiritual and/or personal journey here. Apparently, being on a reality show is a “journey.” Go figure. I’d always thought being on a reality show was a supreme act of narcissism. How embarrassing for me.

4. If you are feeling down or grumpy, just smile. According to some show on the Science Channel, simply using your smile muscles will improve your outlook. I tried it, and it works a bit. Cool. Except, now I feel a bit guilty about how one of my junior high teachers used to always blather to me, “Smile! It can’t be that bad,” and all I wanted to do in response was punch her in the face. Just a little bit guilty, since I’m certain she didn’t have the science to back her demands.

5. Another tip from the Science Channel — if you are like me, when it’s bedtime you are too lazy to walk all the way to turn on the hall light before turning off the living room light, which means you probably spend a tiny time every day bumbling around in total darkness, trying to find that damned hall light switch you were too lazy to turn on only moments before. Here’s the tip. Apparently, we humans do have the ability to use sonar/echolocation. So, while stumbling around in the dark, rather than bumping into the wall or tripping over the coffee table, just close your eyes and make repetitive beeping sounds. You will innately sense when something is in front of you. Seriously. It works. Try it. Think of yourself as one of those radar doodads on a submarine. Beep — beep — beep — beep — I think that’s a bookcase — beep — beep. Do it while someone is around and unaware of your experiment. It’ll keep them on their toes.

6. The vast majority of murderers don’t watch TV, or they don’t watch the right shows, since most of the things they do that eventually lead to their capture could have been avoided had they watched a couple of true forensics programs. Too bad for them, but good for the cops, I suppose.

7. I’m too old to play video games non-stop during my waking hours. And it’s not for the reason you’d think, like carpel tunnel or somesuch. It’s because I will play all day, then dream about the stupid games all night long. This wasn’t a problem when I was younger. Now that I’m older, I get all worked up in my dreams, trying to beat some level or other, or the game gets caught in a loop and I can’t get out. Either way, it wakes me up all stressed out and wired. Oh hell.

8. Drag queens can be boring. I didn’t think it possible, but it’s true. This new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race is not very interesting so far. At least I have picked up some new vocab, like “ki-ki” (two drag queens dating one another) and “fish” (a biological female). I am a bit PO’d at the whole “fish” thing, but isn’t it pointless to be pissed at drag queens?

9. I can watch shows about cakes (Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, Challenge, Ultimate Cake Challenge, et. al.), without actually craving cake. I cannot, however, watch more than 10 minutes of Man vs. Food without craving a 72-ounce steak, or at the very least, a three-pound cheeseburger with two pounds of toppings. And that just sucks.

10. Never, ever take your doctor’s word for anything. That weird, weeping rash you’ve had for a few years? Pitch that useless cortizone cream. Get yourself to a specialist, because it’s probably a parasite you picked up on that vacation in Barbados. I’m now uber-vigilant about odd symptoms. Anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, could be a stinking parasite. They’re never gonna get me, sneaky little buggers.

11. The ugliest woman in the world is currently starring in a program called “Operation Repo” on truTV. I may be a hag, but this woman appears to be reveling in her hagnicity. I can’t think of one more thing she could do to make herself more unattractive. The hair, the make-up, the clothes, the personality. Gads. It’s so bad, the other day we were watching and paused the show. Ugly woman was frozen on screen in all her glorious uglitude. Maggie had been napping, but happened to wake up and glance at the TV. All of a sudden she got all bristled up and started barking like a rabid critter. She wouldn’t stop until we took Ugly Woman off the screen. Now THAT is some kind of ugly, folks.

This is merely a sample of the useful information I have acquired since becoming a useless hairy mole on the back of society. I simply can’t imagine why people think TV and video games rot people’s brains. It’s soooo not true. They’re probably just jealous … and should go on a journey or something to heal themselves.