Life on the Big Rig

Seems it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I have no excuse. Guess I’m just lazy. With Christmas near I was thinking back about my family, mostly about my dad. He was a very unique person. During my childhood we pretty much lived in poverty. Mom and dad both worked minimum wage jobs and struggled to make ends meet. One of our family friend’s was a truck driver and they had no problem with money. So, dad went to truck driving school in Arkansas. I know, it sounds like a nightly routine from Jeff Foxworthy but sadly it isn’t.

Dad started his long career in truck driving. One summer mom and dad decided to let my sister ride with him on the semi for a couple of weeks. When he came back through town he dropped her off and picked me up. I was around 12 or 13 and looking forward to my adventures on the road in a big rig.

Yeah – big adventures.

So our first trip was from Oklahoma to Austin, Texas. That very first day I figured out that riding in a big rig – isn’t so much fun. You sit for long hours looking out the window at a lot of nothing. You just can’t pull in to any restaurant to eat or park at any landmark to take pictures – big rigs are just that – big rigs.

We get into Austin during the 5pm rush hour traffic – which means we were completely at a stand still on the road. A few hours went by and I needed to pee and dad needed to go too. Well, in his terms “he needed to piss like a Russian race horse!”.  I never fully understood that saying.

Dad tells me he keeps a jug behind the sleeper. For those who don’t know the ‘sleeper’ on a big rig is the square box right behind the driver and passenger seat. It’s where the driver sleeps. I unbuckle, retrieve the jug, and return to my seat. It was your typical Preston Anti-Freeze jug.

I asked dad what he was going to do with it. He said it would still be an hour or two until we make it to a place where he could park. That if we needed to pee we’d have to pee in the jug. I’m boy, this wasn’t really an issue for me. However, the jug wasn’t empty it was nearly full. I passed that information along to dad and he told me to just roll the window down and pour it out and try not get it on any one’s car or on the  truck.

I roll the window down, pop the lid off, and proceed to pour out what I thought was anti-freeze on the road. What came out of that jug was far from coolant.

Ever wonder what a gallon of piss looks and smells like after being stored in a jug for 3 months?

Seems dad neglected to tell me that this was ‘his when I’m stuck in traffic and need to piss jug’. I was under the impression that we were improvising on the spot.

This putrid glob of a congealed liquid started oozing out of the jug. The smell was pretty much the worst smell I’ve ever encountered. Here I was, hanging half out of a truck window, pouring out a gallon of someone else’s piss, while gagging.

I look over and my dad is laughing hysterically and I really didn’t need to pee anymore.

Those fond childhood memories.