"Grog All Lit Up"

The other night I stopped in Walcott, IA for the night. Huge mistake. See, that's the largest truck stop in the world. It's big, it's beautiful and it's full of trucker stuff. Trucker stuff is pretty. Shiny chrome, lights, accessories we don't need, some I wanted and didn't even know what they were for. 

There's a chrome and light section on one side. They've got a couple of fancy show trucks over there and I was drawn like a moth to flame. So was Grog. 

I've spent a LOT of money on making my truck run extremely well. There are faster, more powerful trucks than mine but very very few of them, I assure you. After nearly 3 years and tens of thousands of dollars spent on performance upgrades it's time to start working on the cosmetics. 

"Ooohhh. Stars! Grog want to see! Looks like fire but no hurt when touch. Grog must have this!"  Easy, killer, let's just look around a bit. We can come back to this section later. Oh, and those are called lights doofus. 

"No! Grog want look at these tall shiny things. Look, Grog can see himself in them. So shiny!" Yeah yeah. Those are exhaust pipes. Look, let's go get something to eat first. It's been a long day. "No! Grog no eat until Grog see more light/stars! Wait. Grog smell Taco Bell. Can we eat and look at same time?" Dude. This stuff will be here afterward. C'mon. Please. Our stomach is growling. People are starting to stare and point. We sound like a gassy water buffalo. Food first, toys later. Geez. 

"Grog let you order food but we better come back for light stars. Grog want see more." Yes. We can shop after we eat. It's bad to shop on an empty stomach, it makes you buy stuff you don't need. 

"Hmpf. Grog need light stars even if Grog not hungry. You get light stars or I no let you sleep." Hey, idiot, they're just called lights. No star. Just lights. And quit rocking back and forth while you're looking. 

As it turns out Taco Bell was actually underwhelming this time. Grog had been right, we needed to shop a little. So we headed back downstairs and that inner caveman made a beeline for the most expensive stuff he could find. (I don't know why they call it a beeline. Every see how bees give directions? It's like they've got epilepsy.) 

Mentally elbowing Grog aside a minute, I approach the salesman. "Excuse me, sir. I'm interested in some exhaust pipes. I want to put straight pipes on. I think 7 inch will do." So he takes me for a little walk to show me the "Lincoln chrome" pipes. Triple dipped in chrome, rustproof and eternally shiny. Hhmm. $675 per pipe, per side. Plus the elbows for $411 per side. Hmm, indeed. 

Grog was positively glowing by then. I'm sure it was him that was tapping his feet in excitement. We were like a fat kid in a donut factory. 

"Um. I'll also need a resonator. (That goes under the truck and serves as a muffler of sorts since I won't have one on each pipe anymore). And I suppose I'll have to get new clamps and flex tube?" As it turns out, it'll take 5 weeks to have the new pipes delivered to my house. After a few measurements we aren't sure if the new, larger elbows will work so we order pipes that'll fit the old ones. 

As I hand the guy cash Grog is nearly ready to faint. I went in for Taco Bell and just spent $3,200 on new exhaust parts. Eh. Spend it on the truck or get taxed on it. I'm fine with this choice. 

From here, though, things got bad. Grog was pulling me back over to the lights. They had a new thing where I can put lights on my straps that hold my fuel tanks. The display truck had two straps per tank. My truck has three straps per tank. Gotta decorate them all though, right? 

"Grog want this. Truck look better with light sta...lights. Can we put lights tonight? Pleeeease?" No. Not tonight. Did you not just see what I just laid out for your stupid exhaust pipes? 

"Truck will sound like wooly mammoth farting though, right? Truck will sound like Sabretooth roar? Then this is good. Keep puny car things away from Truck." Yes. Yes it certainly will. You know we're gonna give someone a heart attack with this thing now, right? (For the record here, we've enhanced the performance so much that my truck is already significantly louder than it was before though we've not done any work to the exhaust. With a resonator and straight pipes, especially bigger ones, it's gonna be loud. And beefy. That translates into 'sexy' in trucker speak).

"When heart attacks them they will look to Truck to save them." No. That's not how that works at all. Heart attacks are bad. Control yourself, Grog.

That monkey man simply shrugged his shoulders at me and said "you buy lights now." Nooo. I just told you. One project at a time. We will make a list and do one thing at a time. We were supposed to put new floors and cabinets in until we decided to stop in HERE like idiots. "Ugh. Grog no like you right now." Yeah, join the club. You'll get your lights eventually. Don't you want the air conditioner fixed? 

"No. Grog ride with windows down and listen to Truck. I don't get lights, you don't get cold air." It's always a battle of wills with this guy. It's even harder when we both want the same thing but I've gotta be practical. You think your inner teenager is bad? Try dealing with this bonehead for a while. 

So we made our list. By "we" I mean "I" because he was stuck staring at LED's and shit. Thankfully, I had a minute to think by myself. I'm not much of a "list" person so this was going to be hard enough already. 

Ok. Here goes. Wait until the pipes come in and do the work myself to save a grand or so. Because I'm still miserly. Then fix the air conditioning so it works. Not for comfort but for humidity control. Go out to Texas and get cedar floors and cabinets put in. (I've gotta remember to go over the measurements on the cabinets with that guy). Then put on a new bumper. Order the one with lights to make Grog happy. Get turn signals put on the edges. More lights for Grog. 

Then order the full fenders. I found some nice fiberglass ones I really like. Turns out I've got expensive taste though. Oh look, that seat looks really nice. Oooh. Memory foam too. It's like a hundred tiny Asians massaging my butt. Must have it. That's going on the list. 

The list just kept getting longer. Especially with Grog still staring at lights. He doesn't know it yet but I'm going to order him a bunch of them. The guys at the counter were real excited about handing me 2 catalogs, their cards and a bunch of points on my loyalty card. I'm thinking they're looking forward to more of this loyalty. 

"Dealing With The Devil"

My GPS is possessed by the devil. I'm sure of it. And this particular devil is female (like I didn't already know that. Bobby Boucher's mama told us that). This particular female devil hates me. 

She's always fussing at me. She's always telling me how lost I am. It's like being married. Except I can mute her. Oh how I would've loved that feature at many times in the past 20+ years. Just as I'm sure that's been said about me. Fair is fair.  

If not possessed then it's at least designed by the Illuminati. What, you thought I forgot about those guys? Not bloody likely. Not when I've got a GPS as proof of their existence!

See, this piece of electronics just looooves the toll roads. And it clearly has no concept of the law. That or, as I said, it just effing hates me. No way can this be accidental or caused by solar flares or that phantom "global warming". 

What's worse is that our reliance on these electronic deviants is so strong. I'll call a shipper or receiver for directions and they'll give me the address. "Well I have your address. What I need is directions. I need to know how to get there." 

They'll almost invariably respond with "well just type the address into your GPS." I usually just tell them I don't have one. Partly because the damn thing is virtually useless for actual directions. It normally does a great job of tracking my mileage through each state though so that's a plus. 

Then the fun starts. "I don't know how to get here..." How the hell do people not know how to get to work?! The devil GPS, I bet. "Well, sir, I'm curious. Before GPSes, what directions would you give people? I'll just use those."

Unfortunately, most of the time I have to give up trying to get useful information out of these guys and wing it, hoping my GPS isn't being full-on retarded that day. It'll have me turning down back streets, alleyways, through someone's back yard, hopping fences and skirting pools. It's insane. "Turn left now", that female computer tells me as I'm looking at a road I wouldn't take a bicycle on. 'I think not, dumbass. I'm gonna stay on this here paved road thank you very much.' 

"Recalculating" recalculate away, psycho. "Turn left in 600 feet." Nope. Ain't gonna do it. That looks like the back of a restaurant. "Recalculating". Go ahead. I'm gonna ignore you anyway. Is there actually a MAP in there or are you using The Force you daft twit?! 

"Recalculating". Of course. "Turn left in 1 mile". Not if there's not an actual ROAD there. Do you somehow think I'm in a hot air balloon or something?! 

"Recalculating". Aaarrgggh! I HATE you. Shut up already! You don't know what you're doing! Let ME drive for a little while!

I'm pretty sure that internally this thing has Eeyore's voice mumbling "no one ever listens to me. Nobody likes me. I might as well not be here." And it'd be right. 

Especially when it comes time to choose a route involving a highway. You know what this stupid machine does? Look, here's proof of the Illuminati's existence right here...

I can be 6 miles from a nice, big highway that goes precisely in the direction I want. My GPS will try to route me through 20 miles of back road goat trails to get me to a highway that has a toll road. If I try heading towards that free one Little Miss GPS loses her electronic mind. "Make a U turn whenever possible.." Are you kidding me?! Is this a friggin Fiat?! I'm in an 18 wheeler you idiot. I'm not just gonna 'whip a Uey' because you say so! Now, if there's hot wings or lasagna involved we can negotiate. Then I give it a slow blink and keep going. 

Six miles later I'm getting on the highway and my GPS is brooding noisily. "I still say you should've gone my way. Why don't you ever do what I tell you? You don't love me do you? Why'd you even bother to buy me if you're just going to ignore my directions? That's kinda what I'm here for ya know..." Only instead of those words I get "recalculating" every time I pass an exit. 

Yeah, it's a love/hate relationship with my GPS. Makes me feel comfortable. We love to hate each other, just like any normal relationship. She nags, she complains, she tries to control me... We haven't set a wedding date but I'm sure if she were human we'd be talking about it. Then she'd try to get me lost on the way to the church. 

Fortunately, however, I spent a long time driving a truck before I finally gave in and got a GPS. So I learned what is clearly now a lost art: I can read a map. Rand McNally sells big ole giant road atlases fairly inexpensively and I get a new one every 6 or 7 years. No point buying a new one every year, they don't generally relocate highways. 

Using this road map I can plan my route from coast to coast and happily ignore my electronic navigator. Mercifully. Now I'm not saying it's always useless. There are times she's good at directions. However, I can't just follow it blindly or I'll end up in places I can't get out of. Especially if there's a toll booth around. I'm fairly certain that if I always followed her directions I'd end up stuck in an alley with a toll ticket in my hand and there'd be mechanical maniacal laughter from atop my dash. 

"First I Run Zen I Walk"

Ya know, sometimes I feel like no matter what I say or do it's gonna be the dead opposite of "right". There are days I'm surprised I'm not putting my shoes on the wrong feet or I've gotta double and triple check that I'm wearing clothes before I leave the house. 

I've had a lot of those days lately. Probably some byproduct of cutting back on hot wings or something. Whatever it is, it's annoying. It needs to stop or I'm going to end up doing something stupid like forgetting to get my coffee in the morning. Who are we kidding, I'll never forget my beloved coffee. That sweet nectar of life. 

What I have done, instead, is learn to set reminders on my phone. Just little notes to myself to keep things in order. They usually go like "step one: look around. Everything seem clear? Yes? Then you're wearing your contacts. No glasses today. 

Step two: is everything fuzzy? Yes? Are you wearing glasses? Yes? Then you've still got your contacts in. Take your glasses off, idiot. If it's fuzzy and you don't have your glasses on then put them on. No contacts today." I had to set that one when I realized i kept trying to wear glasses while I had my contacts in. Almost panicked thinking my vision got worse overnight. 

Another little note to myself involved making sure my shoes matched. Thought I was limping until I realized I was wearing a running shoe on one foot and a high top on the other. Fortunately I caught it before getting out in public. That would've been embarrassing. Good times. 

I guess I've had a lot on my mind lately. Or nothing at all. Sometimes it's a fine line I reckon. Obviously, I've not been overly bright lately. I thought of getting a pet monkey to help dress me or something. 

So what do I do when I can't focus? I work out. I push myself harder. I run farther. At home that's not a big deal; I've got a stationary running machine. I just get on it and go like I'm on a hamster wheel until I can't move. 

That pet monkey would've come in handy last night. He could've reminded me I'm not at home. Out here on the road running to exhaustion has consequences. Just little ones like "which way did I run when I left the truck stop? How many turns did I make? Where in the blue hell AM I?" 

I thought I was going to have to call a cab to find my way back to the truck stop. My legs felt like I had molten lava running through my veins. Just standing was becoming painful. Walking back God knows how far to the truck stop seemed an impossible task. There was definitely not going to be any jumping rope when I got back. Yes, I jump rope as goofy as that sounds. 

So I google mapped my way back to that good ole trucker haven. 6 miles. Seriously?! I didn't feel like walking 6 blocks much less 6 miles. And I suddenly had a craving for hot wings. 

On the long, long journey back to my truck I reflected on a few things. See, here recently I did something very atypical. I lost my cool on someone. Yes, usually I'm kinda sarcastic and snarky but this time I went off in anger. 

It takes quite a lot to get me to unload on someone like that and it's actually extremely rare that I do. When I do, however, I let loose in epic fashion. Even I was stunned and surprised by how venomous my words were. It's not something I'm proud of but I suppose it was a long time coming. 

The magnitude of my anger was such that I even went to see a therapist to figure out what the hell happened. I was supposed to do phone sessions with her once a week but it's ended up being 2-3 times a week so far. Mostly because I want someone to talk to. Not to feel better. Not even that I need counseling. Just boredom. Hell, the diagnosis was "you got mad. People get mad when they've been mistreated. You're officially 'human'. And it sounds as though SHE'S the one in serious need of counseling." I just call now because it's boring and lonely out here. At $90 a pop it'd be cheaper just to take up drinking I suppose. 

As it turns out the good doctor seems to think the guilt of having lost my temper and hurting someone I care about is normal. Apparently, however, me finally snapping was understandable. (I'll point out here that she did say she was impressed with my patience in waiting a year to actually come undone). But here's the deal, folks, losing my temper gained me nothing. 

Yes, I was in a very emotionally and psychologically abusive relationship for a year. I was on the receiving end of things if you can believe that. It almost sounds absurd even to me. But I learned a few things. 

One of my friends recently told me he knew what a challenge I'd dealt with. My response was that fighting a great white with your bare hands, that's a challenge. Traveling to the moon in a hot air balloon, that's a challenge. This woman wasn't a challenge, she was a life lesson. One that destroys your emotional and psychological equilibrium. 

And there's the lesson, guys. You can't let someone do that to you. You can't let them keep putting you down. Especially not when they're doing it right in front of their family and friends right in front of you. You can't believe someone like that loves you. If they clearly can't respect you then they certainly can't love you. 

I've listened to people talk about their abusive spouses and wondered why they'd stay with someone like that. I've wondered why they'd believe the tears and the "I'm sorry, I'll change". Now I understand. You get used to it. The abuse and misery becomes comfortable. 

In the end of it one of the things she'd said was that she can't be with someone who doesn't respect themselves. Internally I scoffed. Of course I respect myself. But then I thought about it. Allowing her to disrespect, mock and belittle me on a nearly daily basis wasn't very self-respecting either. 

Why am I telling you all this? Do I feel like a victim? No. I'm no victim. I allowed it to happen. Repeatedly I'd mentioned the lack of respect and repeatedly it was talked around. But don't let it build up, guys. Just walk away. 

If you're with someone and you hear them talk badly about all of their friends, think about what they're probably telling them about you. If they're bad mouthing you to their family right in front of you when you're meeting that family for the first time...walk away. 

I've said this in other posts and I'll say it again: none of us is in a position to judge anyone else. None of us. 

Don't let anyone devalue you. Don't let anyone treat you like you're not good enough. As was my case, don't accept it when the person you're with says "I'm out of your league". I call bullshit. When they tell you "you're poor white trash and I deserve better", call bullshit.

We all know that if there's one thing I hate most it's double standards. So how I put up with many of the things I put up with I can only chalk up to the fact I had actually become addicted to the smell of bullshit. Maybe I should trade my trailer again and start hauling livestock. 

If someone you're with tells you they deserve better than you then the odds are you are the one who deserves better. Better treatment. Don't let anyone make you feel inadequate. Oh, I could go on here and do a "compare and contrast" of her life against mine but that's not what this is about. 

Sadly, I do regret losing my temper. I do regret that things ended in a fashion where we can't be friends. Yes, I've tried to make amends and stipulate mea culpa on going off the way I finally did. Yes, I do regret that she hates me now. I do believe that she did care at one point in her own twisted way. And I did care about her. I loved her deeply at one point. But I've gotta care about me more. 

We all do it. Some people get so used to being unhappy that they fear the absence of it. I was the same way. I talked to Molly for 4-6 hours nearly every day for over a year. 

It becomes addictive when it's good. But it's like being a junkie. You enjoy the high so much, no matter how brief it is, that you don't see the damage it's doing to you. 

These people, these drugs of the heart, become a need. Become enablers. They enjoy that they have this control over you. They feed off the love you give them. But it's all false love. It's...it's like the high is what you love. 

Once the lows start to become more frequent, once you start to see the person they are underneath then things start to unravel. The euphoria becomes shorter and the addiction starts to consume you. You take the abuse just so you can have even a hope of the high you used to have.

You can't fix a cycle. A cycle is precisely that...it's an unending loop. The only way to "fix" a cycle is to break it. 

When Molly and I got back together last year she asked me why she does what she does. I told her back then that this has become a pattern of behavior for her and the only way to fix it is to break that pattern. And I thought she'd finally done that. I thought the cycle was over. Then I saw it start again in August. And we started fighting shortly thereafter. 

Neither YOU nor I can break THEIR pattern of behavior. All we can do is determine to break our own. 

If you've been down this road before, like me, and you start to see these same behaviors in your partner, address them. But be prepared to walk away. You've gotta love yourself more than you love that sweet pain.

My Zen Thought for the day is this: don't let ANYONE determine your value. Ever. If someone can't appreciate what they have in you, walk away.