Death by degrees.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Two years ago I trained for two months to test for, and receive, my Class A CDL mostly because I’ve always wanted to drive the big rigs and mostly because I thought it’d be fun.

And it was.

In fact it was SO fun that fourteen months ago I bought my first truck, a 2004 Freightliner Classic XL that I named Trixie.

And she was beautiful.

Because of my other company, I couldn’t drive her full-time so I hired a driver thinking that I could run the truck, spell the driver when he needed time off, and make some additional income.

Beauty, right?

Wrongo.

My first driver, whom we will call Chris to protect the innocent from lawsuit, was a piece of shit truck driver that didn’t really seem to want to drive a truck. Unfortunately I was a newbie and it took me six months to finally realize this and fire his dead ass.

My second driver, whom we’ll call Ian for litigious reasons, was a pretty decent driver for about two weeks until he was involved in a hazmat accident when a texting jackass t-boned Trixie and ruptured her driver side tank, spilling a hundred gallons of diesel fuel.

Ian quit while Trixie was being repaired.

My third driver, who may have been named Mark, hit a deer on I64 near Emporia, fucking up Trixie’s fender and grill and rupturing her radiator.

My fourth driver, possibly Lamont(?), drove Trixie for a couple of days and disappeared. I never have heard from him.

My fifth driver, whom let’s just call Terrence for lack of a better name, was the best. He drove five and six days a week, his deliveries were always on time, and he seemed to genuinely love Trixie as much as I did. 

Until he took an exit ramp too fast and rolled her and totalled her.

Fortunately, (or maybe unfortunately, depending on my frame of mind), the driver we’ll call Terrence wasn’t hurt and I carried enough insurance on Trixie that after all the dust has settled I still have enough money left over to buy another truck.

This time I’m driving.