Due to a recent schedule change, I have been subjected to the cruel and unusual punishment of driving my husband’s quirky Ford truck to work. Quirky is my nice way of saying that his truck is ridiculous. For whatever reason (perhaps because he’s insane?), my husband loves his truck. I despise that I have to drive it 40 miles south of Forks every day.

For starters, the truck is really old. It may have been the very first truck off the assembly line. OK, obviously I’m exaggerating that. It was realistically more like the third or fourth truck.

Because it is so old, it doesn’t have any of the modern vehicle conveniences. The truck is missing things such as power windows, power locks, power anything, windshield wipers with more than one speed, cruise control, brakes, etc. Basically I’m driving the Flintstone car … with a floorboard … for now.

Another “quirky” thing about the truck is the bright light business. Turning on the bright lights requires me to step on a little pedal on the floorboard (which may or may not even be there tomorrow). Who thought this was going to be a good idea?

My feet already were outnumbered by pedals in an average stick shift! In this truck, there are TWICE as many pedals as feet. That’s not even counting the emergency brake … because it doesn’t work so I didn’t add it into the equation.

Also, there is the issue of the speedometer. The little pointer thingy bounces around so much that I have absolutely no idea how fast I am driving at any given time. If I were pulled over, here’s how it would go: Police officer, “Do you know how fast you were going?” Me, “Probably somewhere between 5 and 85 MPH, but I could be wrong.” Police officer, “Have you been drinking?” Me, “No. I’m just quirky.”

As if I didn’t have enough reasons to hate the truck, we also spend more money in lightbulbs per week than the truck is worth … which isn’t a lot either way, but still! Apparently, the lights all get together nightly to decide which one goes out the next day. The other morning, while leaving for work, I noticed that the right blinker light was out. With no time to change it (and also I don’t know how to) I thought to myself, “No problem. I just won’t turn right if a cop is following me.” A state patrol started following me a mile before I got to work … where I turn right. Such is my luck.

Despite all of this, I am trying to remain optimistic. I know that I should be thankful that my family (technically speaking) has two running vehicles. After all, there are people out there who have to travel by donkey.

Hey, wait …

If you have a donkey that you would like to sell me for transportation purposes (or for questions or comments), e-mail me at christyrasmussen@yahoo.com.