So I'm At the Truck Stop At Three in the Morning...

...and, as if by magic, I'm smarter and more interesting than anyone I've seen in here yet.

Everything here is tacky. Everything.

It's hard for me to believe that this is a way of life, with rituals, customs, ideas, jokes, and proceedures. These people aren't that different. We're both members of cultures. My leisurly intellectual class is the standard by which I judge these people's class.

The main difference between "us" and "them" is there seems to be a lack of hunger here. A sense of defeat. A sense of getting along just to get along. The pamphlets here reach out to people without identity. There's one for mail order brides. Some horribly unbalanced "information" about Islam. Some for getting on the fast track to a better career.

What pride is shown in trucking here is phony. There's tacky, poorly made clothing about "American" truckers and pills and drinks and tablets for keeping you awake, alert, and on the road.

I found it particularly odd that there is a pill here one can use to stop urnating for up to eight hours. How this got by the FDA is astounding to me (assuming it actually works, of course). They watch made for TV movies and actually get so emotionally involved that they shout at the characters to do whatever.

I'm looking at a guy right now who's staring at the TV, his mouth gaping open. Now granted, he may be tripping or tweaking or high, but judging from my view he seems to have the awestruck intensity usually reserved for somebody watching 2001 or Citizen Kane.

What a wretched life, I think to myself. What a dismal state of being. Driving a truck full of whatever town to town to town popping pills and listening to James Earl Jones read the Bible just because it's the Bible. Sitting for entire days in a daze. Each blood pressure machine showing a higher and higher number. TBS at five a.m. Chick publications. And nothing to look forward to at the end but doing it again, only older, sicker, and more alone than the last time.