A Trucking Dog’s Blog: By K.M. Stanfield So here we sit, creeping along, slower than a Home Depot receiving line. Time seems to slow down as trucks roll over the scale, drivers staring at the red light, window cracked, hoping they are not invited to stay. I realize the stress of this day already might make my driver spontaneously combust. He’s more upset than normal – more than getting low on cigarettes, an empty thermos of coffee, or getting behind a speed limited truck camping in the left lane. However, we are here, sitting on the scale next to the mirrored little brick building where I see myself in its reflection, hoping the light turns green... but it doesn’t. My driver shifts lower in his seat, managing a growl of indignation as a non-bearded, uniformed man comes strolling out of his brick home and stares at my truck, slowly making his way to the driving side. As my driver pulls that black and red hat down further on his head, his eyes narrowing to slits, I crane my neck to listen to Mr. Uniform take a huge breath and begin to lecture my driver. He speaks with stilted sentences that are causing my driver to chew the inside of his cheek (a sure sign of stress overload). I decide not to bark just yet, as I strain to listen to the tense, one-sided conversation. My driver’s mood grows darker and darker as he explains to the smug badged man that yes, he knows how and when to use his drop axle and when to move his tandems, and no, we are clearly not oversize, and yes, he checks tread depths every pre-trip. That and other snippy questions are thrown at my driver and obliterating whatever good mood he may have had left. Finally, with his hands once again gripping and molding the steering wheel, he’s told it’s all for education and the badged man walks back into the brick building (which I’m told all bears live and hibernate). The light finally turns green. My driver’s Butt Bucket is full again. Ever since that last delivery, he’s been eerily quiet with a smoke stick always hanging from his mouth. An empty red and white box lay crushed on the floor as he grabs yet another one, smacking it on his thigh before flipping the clear film on the floor and cracking it open. With smoke filling the cab, my driver grips and kneads the steering wheel and then suddenly intense, foul language bursts from his mouth, which keeps me from taking a nap (something I must do fifteen times a day). In the last couple of hours, I’ve tried to shut my eyes, but am always interrupted by repeated streams of angry complaints of bad drivers, shifting loads, incompetent forklift drivers, the bimbo in receiving and the potholes in their lot. All from the last delivery site, which was only the beginning of this long day. There are always standard complaints from my driver after every delivery, however the cause of said accelerated cigarettes in the Butt Bucket was the addition of a massive tear he found in his beloved tarp while folding it in their potholed riddled lot. Post repairs, the sharp smell of acrid adhesive mixes with smoke in the cab as the offensive goo seems to have stuck to his boots, jeans and hands – everything except the tarp, of course. He claims that this adhesive was obviously made for blow-up poolside animals, not an 8-foot drop lumber tarp. That and my tail knocking over a full 24-ounce Monster on the driver side floor mat and a graphic novel getting jammed in the CD player made my driver in about the worst mood I’ve ever seen him in. I can feel my eyelids once again getting heavy as the smoke and smell of glue starts to dissipate along with my driver’s somewhat intensely foul mood. The highway rolls by with the sun’s warmth pouring through the windshield. He’s settling in and not using colorful cuss words – the cigarettes are staying in the box and not hanging continually from his mouth and causing a cloud of stress induced smoke. A fog of sleep takes over as I slump in the seat, and dreams of slow squirrels, massive meaty bones and red rubber balls raining from the sky begin to become my unconscious reality when suddenly my driver yells, “WHAT THE !!#%&$?” Snapped from my (almost) nap, I look over and see my driver’s mood has gone from settling down to almost a nuclear meltdown as we start pulling into yet another weigh station! This must be the last one in Indiana as my driver yells that we’ve been pulled into every freaking other one in the state today. The green bypass light has never lit up once today, so I conclude it must be broken. I also conclude it absolutely will be destroyed by my driver’s fist should he get any more irritated. 16 10-4 Magazine / October 2026 SPIKING THE SCALE
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