Truckin' along.

When I was little I can remember riding with my dad in his work truck. He was a Chevy man, always drove a Chevy truck. For some reason it was a treat to ride with dad in his truck. At that time my mom didn't drive so the truck was our only form of transportation beyond the local bus.
It was a big climb up into that truck and I was always proud when he didn't help me. I wanted to show him that I could do it myself. I would go along when he went out to his job site on a saturday, (he was a finishing carpenter) or for a trip to the dump with some building debris. When it was parked in the carport my brother and I would climb all over it.
I learned to drive in that truck. It always amused me when I was allowed to take it to school and the guys would swivel their heads to see shy, little Sue jumping out of this big truck. I would secretly blow raspberries in their direction.
We've had issues with vehicles lately, just recently replacing my car with a Mazda Protege. I enjoyed driving that too. It was my car, had my cd's in the dash and my radio station tuned on the dial. And air conditioning, blessed air conditioning. Then Dennis's car died, so he started driving Josh's Daytona. A cast off from a friend who gave him a good deal, it got him into Vancouver and back for school and to his work for as long as he needed. The friend had said just drive it till it dies. Josh didn't manage to kill it but Dennis did. (Not that he is hard on cars he just drives a long way to work and back.)
This time Dennis said, 'lets just get a truck, we're always in need of someone else's, let's just get our own.' So I saw it coming. The reasoning behind the decision for me to no longer get to drive my car. Nice new vehicle no more. At least not for me. The car is cheaper on gas than a truck will be and my work is only 30 seconds away, so guess who is driving my nice car.
And guess who is driving the truck. What I can't tell Dennis, because I must give the impression that I am suffering with the sacrifice of giving up my car, is that I am secretly enjoying driving a truck again. I didn't realize how much I missed the manual transmission and the power of a truck. I'm the gardener in the family so I am always wanting to haul branches to the dump. And the other day when I ripped a piece of drywall out of the kitchen it was good to know that I could take care of the cleanup myself. Another trip to the dump.
I don't know, it's a bit of a juggling act. I can't show that I'm having too much fun with this old beater of a truck 'cause he might want to have it himself. I have to grumble just the right amount and not show too much pleasure in it.
So for now, I'm just truckin' along...and enjoying it. But don't tell everyone that I'm driving a truck. They'll just want me to go to the dump with their stuff.

The truck