life of a truck driver

Tonight I was sitting in the truck stop ordering then eating my meal. I had bought a newspaper to read and was quietly trying to read and leave everyone alone so I could relax after a very trying evening of driving on a solid sheet of ice. I had expected to slide off the highway at anytime but luckily I made it to the truck stop. My muscles were as tight as a drum and all I wanted to do was relax.

Well, that didn"t happen as a jackass was sitting at a table right beside me and his normal range of voice was at the top of his lungs. He was busily patting himself on the back to everyone that would listen and that was everyone in the cafe if he had anything to do with it. Bragging how much money he had made the last month, complaining about all the (supposedly) bad drivers that got in his way and using very descriptive language that everyone, man woman and child could hear. He didn't give a darn who heard him. Heck I couldn't even hear myself think. The waitress told him to quieten down and cut back on the cussing because some people didn't care to listen to his very colorful language.

True to form, he turned to the guy at the next table and began to make comments about drivers that didn't like cussing and how they must drive for J.B. Hunt because they weren't real drivers. Now I was one of the people that said something to the waitress. I got up from the table and walked away before I decked the silly jackass. I cuss as much as the next driver but there is a time and a place for that and that place is not around children or ladies even though that woman may cuss worse than I do. He was at the back of the cafe and when I walked up to the cashier I could still hear every word he said from at least 50 feet away.

This type of person is the ones that give us a bad name and I cannot blame people for thinking bad things about truck drivers when they hear this kind of crud. I cannot stand nor abide rude, loud and arrogant fools and idiots. Arrogant people have no place in my life or will they ever. That is people that know everything there is about trucking because they read it and they are professionals (that is in their own minds). When pigs fly that might be true but most of us don't learn about this from books, the internet or good ole boys/girls we learned it through hard and fast experience.

Another thing I have trouble handling is when a person gets angry they raise their voices and start yelling (it seems like) at the top of their lungs. Even if they are right I will walk away from them and from that point on ignore them. If you want to convince me of something, angry or not, talk to me in a calm reasoned voice and I will listen but yell or raise your voice and I will shut you out quickly.

Since I am on this subject of rudeness I have one more point to make. People constantly tell me what they don't like about me, which is o.k. but don't think that there might be something about them that I don't like and they never think about that because they are perfect and much smarter than I am. I never get to tell them about their faults because my faults are the only things that count and my faults irritate them.

'nuff said. I got up on my soapbox tonight and I will not apologize to anyone about it. Like it or leave it, it is laid out for you so eat up and swallow hard.

Vaya con Dios, mis amigos. hasta luego

Category: General