It was a truck

It was a truck. Well, it looked like a truck anyway. It had wheels and doors and windows and all the other “trucky” things that trucks have. But this one seemed different to me somehow. The dealer told me it had a clean history, and it probably did, everyone knows you can trust used car salesmen, but for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on, this one seemed different.

Long story short, I bought the thing. I drove it home, and it seemed nice enough. It made it off the lot without any problems, and when I drove it to my girlfriend’s house she seemed pretty excited about it when I drove up. We went for a drive through town and got lots of looks in my new truck. I guess they thought it was as sweet as she did. No matter how many times people told me how cool I looked, or tried to flag me down, the feeling in the pit of my stomach that something wasn’t right wouldn’t go away.

At a stop light, one guy actually got out of his car and came up to me just to warn me that the road was rocky or something. I told him, “Hey, I’m in a truck. I think I can handle it.” He looked at me funny and just kinda stood there for a while. It was really uncomfortable. The light turned green and I drove off, I watched him in the side mirror as I pulled away, yelling and jumping, trying to warn me about the rocks. And the weird thing was, there were no rocks on the road. I kept looking for them, expecting to have to swerve or use the 4 wheel drive (which I never did find on the thing), but they weren’t there. I don’t know what he was talking about.

Like I said, my girlfriend thought the truck was cool, so that’s all that really mattered to me. As we drove on, she turned on the radio, but it didn’t work right. It only got one station, and the music it played was really weird. It played songs like ‘Pop goes the weasel’ and, come to think of it, I never did hear a DJ or a commercial. But that’s not the weirdest thing. When she turned it on, the sound was all muffled until I rolled down the window. I have no idea how the window would be tied to the volume of the radio, but for some reason, in this truck it was.

As we were cruising around town, she asked me to pull into the neighborhood where she’d grown up. I really like her, so I said sure. As I turned onto the street, we saw kids everywhere. Some were playing tag, others were running through sprinklers… It was a perfect July day. She leaned over and squeezed my arm and told me that someday she’d like to have kids. I smiled. The radio was still on though, and I guess it must have been pretty loud, as the kids all seemed to drop what they were doing and run after my truck. Kids must really like that kind of music. She told me to slow down, so I did. I didn’t want to hit a kid or anything, but this was getting crazy. They all started yelling at once and I couldn’t really understand them so I just kept on driving. I think one of them tried to tell me about rocks on the road again. I rolled my eyes and sped up a little bit. As I pulled away, I saw the kids stop running, and some of them started crying which seemed weird. What could make them sad on a day like today?

I took the truck back. I told the dealer I didn’t want it. He asked why, and I told him how the radio didn’t work right, and I couldn’t find the 4 wheel drive to deal with the bad roads that everyone is talking about. He looked at me like I was crazy, and asked if I’d even looked in the freezer. I said, “Freezer? Is the A/C broken too?” He just rolled his eyes and filled out the paperwork. I wasn’t getting ripped off. No sir. I’m too smart for that.