Yes, you read that subject line correctly Mintmegan. I really did drive a truck once and I'd be content never to do it again, well, with perhaps one exception. So a few days ago I was flipping through the stations on my radio while going to work and stopped at a country station. I confess I like some country songs, not all, just SOME so I've been known to stop at a country station from time to time, especially when all the other stations are playing commercials. Seriously do they plan it that way? Why do almost all the stations have to playing commercials at once? Anyway, there was a song playing about a guy who drives what I assume is his father's truck. His father died and he drives his truck when he misses him or wants to remember him or something, you get the idea. So I started thinking about the song and the meaning and thought well, if someone I loved died, I'm not sure I could drive their truck, I've never driven a truck, then all of a sudden it dawned on me, that I did drive a truck once...
Ten or so years ago--good grief can really have been that long ago? It might even be more like 11 years now When did I get so old?--I was visiting my grandfather and step-grandmother over Canadian Thanksgiving weekend--or as they say in Canada, "Thanksgiving weekend." (Sorry BAD joke) My step-grandmother was at some convention that Saturday and Grampa needed to go pick up his tractor (it was getting fixed, he lived well out in the country and had a legit need for a tractor) so he told me to get ready and we were going to go get his tractor and I needed to drive his truck. What?! I should preface this by saying it was a pick-up truck not an 18 wheeler or anything, but still I'd never driven a truck and as I was in college at the time, I still didn't own a car. I drove my parents cars during summers and vacations, but relied on buses, trains, my feet, and friends when I was at college. I certainly couldn't afford a car with my part time low-paying job. Anyway, I told him I couldn't drive his truck, I didn't know how to drive a standard. He told me, "It's not a standard, it's a regular." (I really had thought it was a standard, thinking back on it now, I have no idea why I thought this.) I told him I wasn't sure he'd want me driving his truck, did he really trust me? (I hadn't been home in two months and thus I also hadn't driven a car in two months.) He said if my father allowed me to drive his car then he would too (Grampa was less strict than Dad about a lot of things so he had a point there.) He ended the conversation by saying something along the lines as, "I sure as h*ll wasn't driving the tractor so I had to drive truck." He had a point. I certainly would NOT want to drive that tractor. So I drove the truck. It wasn't far and it wasn't that bad though God help me if I'd had to parallel park it. I have no desire to drive a truck ever again, but 5 years after he's passed away I still think about Gramps quite regularly and if it meant seeing him again, I just might drive his truck one more time. :-)
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