obviously expecting a window to roll down. My driver seems irked by the non-response, as he looks left and right, then back at me. He stomps back to our truck with that look he gets when brake checked by a four-wheeler. My loud alarmed barking causes him to stop and turn back around towards the cab of the opposition’s truck. He sees the same thing I do – WASH ME’s driver walking around the front of his parked tractor. I can see the striped straw dangling out of his stunned mouth, which is stuck in a plastic cup, with the ice and brown liquid inside it swirling about. He’s clinging to a steaming, medium-sized bag which has that singular logo on it, representing a delicious food-making place often found in truck stops. On his disheveled, early morning hair sits a precariously placed large headset (he is obviously waiting for critical, imminent orders from his dispatcher, I assume). The man’s sudden halt at my driver’s approach makes me wonder if his baggy plaid flannel pajama pants and dirty, torn gray thermal shirt will stain terribly should he spill his cold coffee drink on it. Looking again, I think not. The rapping of his flip flops stuck over ankle-high white socks reminds me of the rapping of my driver’s knuckles only minutes ago. As he quickly fumbles around in his pocket for a wayward ignition key, his brown drink spills a bit. Well, there’s one stain never to be found again. As I listen to the ardent and fowl lecture being given by my driver to the other, the strange, sloppy driver receives this old school knowledge with a look of total confusion. Surprisingly enough, it would seem that parking your truck and leaving it before actually entering the 10-4 Magazine / July 2025 65 fuel isle is not, on any planet, acceptable in diesel fuel island etiquette. However, it would appear that some driver’s stomachs are more in need of filling than their truck and their hunger becomes more important, so they stop and leave before entering the actual fuel island. Apparently, this decision is made for drivers behind them, as well. My driver (in a much worse mood for not having the ability to get across said message), walks back to the truck while pajama pants slinks into his tractor and gradually pulls his rig into the diesel island. While my driver waits and begins looking for the other half of his tasty sandwich, I see the glow of red brake lights (which thankfully draws him away from the sausage-sandwich search). We begin to move up, but then suddenly stop, before actually entering the fuel isle. I think to myself, “Why are we not pulling up to the pumps? Is his hunger making him stop, too? Should I not have eaten his sandwich?” Then a sinister laugh begins to rumble from within my driver – a sort of defeatist sound of complete surrender. Shifting back into neutral, he pulls the yellow paddle. All my driver can do is sit back, stare straight ahead, and continue his throaty laugh as I gaze out the windshield. Finally, the dirty Volvo pulls away from the pumps. Unfortunately, he is oblivious to the time he has cost my driver, oblivious to the necessity of other driver’s need to fuel up quickly and get on the road, and oblivious to why you never take your break, order food, or leave your truck for any reason before the pull up area. He is oblivious to what a Streakin’ Beakin’ is, and apparently oblivious to the dragging sound of both hoses, still in the semi’s tanks, separated from their pumps, and heading towards the I-84 on-ramp. n
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjA1MjUy