Decisions

1. Thou shalt deliver thy load on time:

a. Even when dispatched 5 minutes after delivery is due.
b. Night or day—whether black ice, deluge, fog, or flame.

2. Bestow pity upon thy dispatcher:

a. Whenever he proves himself a raving jackass…
b. Forgive him, for he is weak.

3. Honor thy truck:

a. Neither is it a damnable beast, nor doth it conspire against you; nor can it outrun the wind when screamed at.

4. Love the delivery dock:

a. Know the dock foreman’s black heart is filled with compassion.

b. Swampers & lumpers having hearts of gold, know that they seek but a pittance of your driving pay to unload your truck.

c. Salute the grocery warehouse for its dry and unsplintered pallets, its hospital cleanliness, and its cloistered silence.

d. Know you are not breaking down a thousand-piece load onto

a hundred “small wood” pallets, except to lighten the burden of that company’s next-day delivery costs.

e. Believe that you will leave this place of consequence overflowing with love for your fellow man, renewed for your next mission.

5. Doubt not your fellow drivers:

a. Know they are at all times of pure word and reason, and never will they use their radios to heap abuse upon your tiniest breach of driving etiquette.

b. Know the owner of the most splendidly decked out “large-car” will never cast aspersion on the fleet driver’s lumbering cab-over while sailing past. (Know also he may disguise his radio voice, so as to avoid any payback at the next truck stop.)

b. Always know your fellow driver drives more miles per week, earns more, is assigned better trips, and has an infinitely more perfect safety record—than you.

6. Doubt not your company:

a. They will always be there for you in a pinch.

b. If you can pee in a cup and pass, your trips will often flow through the home “yard” with its drug conformity office.

c. “Safety” will never assign you “points,” except when needed to demonstrate departmental accident awareness.

d. Management will experience zero turnover.

7. Welcome four-wheelers—a long hauler’s best friend:

a. Four-wheelers never change lanes without signaling, except on ramps, skinny roads, and highways.

b. Four-wheelers never pass on the right, except when they need to squeeze blindly out in front of you into the hammer lane.

c. Four-wheelers never pass you on a downhill run.

d. Four-wheelers never block you heading into a hill.

e. Four-wheelers never slip you the finger.

8. Fear not truck stops:

a. They have only your comfort, convenience, and wallet in mind.

b. Fuel prices will be shoved up only mincingly, until they cry out for total omission—for driver violence is a blot on fuel counter operations.

c. Pity your waitress for her rotten disposition, her children alone at home, the miserable $5 tip you will leave her, and the evil chef who warms up the garbage she presents you.

d. Pity the shower attendants, who must swab worn shower receptacles with their filthy mops, gathering chips of soap from the drain covers, squeezing them into tiny balls and placing them in the trays of freshly prepared shower rooms.

e. Pity those enfeebled drivers trapped in electronic game rooms, bashing knobs, levers, and pedals, as if still in their trucks mashing knobs, levers, and pedals.

Notice: Above Creed should not be taken as a dire word of warning to anyone who dares pick up and wear the banner of the Long Haul Trucker. Rendered in the spirit of driverly cooperation…take this information as equal in value to the cost of its acquisition.

About the Author:
Richard Ide is a writer of realistic, action-adventure and romantic-suspense fiction. On May 26th, 2008, Button Top Books released 3 ACES, his first published work. Now available on http://Amazon.com or by special order (ISBN: 978-0-615-15821-1) in bookstores. For more information on Richard and 3 Aces, visit: http://www.3acesthenovel.com.

Keyword tags: truck driving, trucks, trucker\\\’s creed, long haul trucker, fiction