Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Tonight I’m at a T/A somewhere in Illinois. I don’t really care what city I’m in or what road I’m on. It’s all the same to me. It’s been a long week. I have four heavy aluminum coils headed to BMW in Piedmont SC. It always kills me when I use my debit/credit card to pay for dinner – the big t-bone special tonight was $18 bucks with tip – then I go in the store to get some drinks and a late night snack and have to show ID in order to pay for it. Why didn’t they ask for ID after dinner? I’m using the same card. It’s all so stupid. Right now, the best scanning/payment system is at Pilot. No ID ever required. It’s the one thing Pilot does right. All the other truck stops are light years behind with their decrepit technology and service impaired clerks. 

Speaking of truck stops -  last night I was at a FJ – again. Now, I don’t know how to say this delicately, so I’m just going to come out and tell you. Sorry, but after you eat at the FJ buffet do you sometimes get.bad gas? Well quite frankly, after last’s night dinner, I was afraid that a driver would be standing outside my truck to light up a smoke and we would both be killed in the resulting explosion. The only thing remaining would be a small crater in the parking lot. I’ve always known that if every driver in the typical FJ parking lot ate the buffet, there would be enough “natural” gas emanating from every cab to power a small city like Davenport IA, which is where this FJ was actually located. And no, I’m not going to buy Beano or take garlic, or is Beano garlic? Whatever.

I’ve received a couple of e-mails/texts asking me to stop being so “wordy” when talking politics. I didn’t think I was, but I’ll get right to the point. The Census. I would prefer just throwing out the form, but Chris didn’t want a government agent – census taker – waking her up on a Saturday morning asking stupid questions, so she just mailed to damn thing. “They” got it to us late so they’re going to get it back late. I’d like to see it done away with. Thomas Jefferson started it as a way to count who was living here.Seemed like a great idea then, but I don’t like what it has become – a cloaked tool of government harassment.

While many don’t want law enforcement to ask if you are legally in this country, “our” government CAN ask if you are a Negro, Mexican, Cuban or whatever else and how many people are living with you and other personal information. Why not ask what religion we all follow? Or do we own handguns or had an abortion? “They” supposedly use the data to doll out money for “social” programs and determine Congressional districting. Really? Billions are spent every ten years to do this. Nonsense. We seem to know how many “illegal’s” are here, but we don’t know how many others there are despite millions of IRS tax and drivers license records. There was not one driver here at the T/A who disagreed with doing anyway with the whole deal. This is all nothing but Federal governmental mumbo jumbo with a big topping of double-standard.

One driver said: “Are we not “instructed” by our society to NOT see someone as Mexican, Jewish or Asian because we are supposed to be united under one flag as Americans? Nobody is to be treated differently because we’re all the same. The Lady of Justice wears a blindfold as to not see who she is judging. Too bad, she doesn’t wear ear plugs. Sorry, bad joke.”