Vacationland

The day after Christmas I pulled a job for a guy I knew down in DC. He got a gig clerking for a federal judge up in Burlington. Asked me if I could fly down and push a 16 footer full of trousers and couches up the coast. Sure, I said. It was a Budget rental. GMC. Sturdy as hell even after 90 thousand and the thing would roar like Fred Durst when you stood on it. We got a couple Motorola two-ways and convoyed up. He took the lead with a radio handle of Tiny Dancer, ostensibly on account of the late model 3 series he was pushing that could do the stomp with anything else on the road. I was Good King Wenceslas on the radio, mostly on account of the snow laying round about; deep and crisp and even.

It was a solid truck and you could take it down the left lane without holding anybody up. There was the gas and the brake and an 11 foot clearance and the rest was up to you. See? Easy.

Well anyways, I pulled another move to Maine today in a Uhaul. It was an anemic Ford F-something-50. I loaded Mean Dean the Vespa in there and strapped a mattress to the wall and threw in a few sacks of slacks and hacky sacks and said goodbye to mom and dad and thanks for everything. Uhaul might have a bigger marketing budget than Budget, and they spend it on flashy graphics on the side of the trucks and decals all over the inside.

On the side of my 14 footer was some strange aircraft carrier made of ice blocks and wood pulp and if I went to the website, I could learn more about it. Sometimes you'll see one with some nice scenery that says 'Utah'. Or with a skier that says 'Colorado'. Real whimsical stuff that has nothing to do with the dirty and loathsome business of an interstate move.

Inside on the sun flap there was a dissertation on how to drive a truck. They installed a Uhaul-brand fuel usage gauge on the A-pillar so you can track your gas mileage in real time. The needle never got too far out of the red on the mountain roads between western and eastern New England. There were other little decals about seatbelts and airbags. Some twisted hack wired the e-brake to a screeching air raid siren. It was a mess. I never had any problem with the graphic on the side but all that other noise made it nearly impossible for an otherwise capable man to drive a truck in a straight line.

I had lunch with an old friend on the way out of town and drifted out east over the Woodford mountain. I made good time across New Hampshire. Traffic was light. At the I-95 toll booth a rotund old outlaw with a long and wild gray beard and dark sunglasses did a quick axle count on my rig and told me in his best Robert De Niro that I owed him 2 dollars.

Then came the big blue state line sign that said Maine. The way life should be. I was cruising in the middle lane and a Chevy truck towing a Uhaul trailer passed me at a clip. I looked at the graphic on the side. It was a cartoonish guy behind an olde timey movie camera. Underneath it said,

Hollywood.