The Confessions of a Professional Seat Cover

    The Confessions of a Professional Seat Cover

Suzanne Marsh

October 17, 1995

Here I am in Utica a guest of my cousin Helen, while Earl goes to truck driving school. Dad

did not exactly think this was the smartest thing we could do but there are perks, like traveling

all over the United States. Two nights ago Earl came home from a truck driving school and asked

me where the toilet plunger was. I asked what he needed the toilet plunger for. As a dutiful

wife, I went and found the plunger. Earl had changed into his Zumba sweats, as I stood there

plunger in hand Earl had me sit on the bed. I have found myself in some crazy situations

but this one deserved a prize Earl informed me that his instructor told him to practice

“shifting” Now I understood why he wanted the plunger, it was an imaginary shifter, or thought I

did until he sat down on the bed and began to shift the toilet plunger, when the feet became

involved I lost it, I laughed so hard my eyes were watering!

October 29^th, 1995

Earl graduated second in his class, now he has to go out four weeks with a trainer and

another two weeks solo before I can go. We drove to J.B. Hunt’s terminal in Syracuse,

New York. We walked into the break room where David entered our lives. David

was Earl’s trainer. He made a mistake when he asked if I would like to see where Earl

would spend his time for the next four weeks. Earl grabbed his duffle bag and

shaving kit and we proceeded to David’s truck. There it stood the monster from hell. I

watched Earl enter the cab. David asked then if I would like to see the truck's interior. I am afraid of heights and I get sick look out a second-story window, the damn truck

is thirteen feet six inches. This did not bode well, I climbed up and looked in, it was

spartan it had one big bed, nothing else. Once I saw the interior I should have climbed right

down but I clung to the bars on the side of the truck on the first step, like a monkey with suction

cups. I was not coming down. This presented a problem to David and Earl since they had to

leave to deliver a load in Tennessee. David attempted to explain that if I just put

my foot down on the next step, everything would be fine. I was not about to budge, and then they

hit on a solution. David took my foot and placed it on the bottom step, I was still clinging to the

handles on the side of the truck. Earl grabbed my waist and lifted me down. They pulled

out of the terminal and I went home with Nick our German Shepherd. Thus began the longest

six weeks of my life.

December 26^th, 1995

Kissed Dad goodbye, and loaded the car with two weeks of clean laundry, we are off on my first

adventure. Earl had a load to deliver at Proctor and Gamble in Lima, Ohio. The snow is falling

at an incredible rate, it is cold and we are going slowly. We are going to stop at the Applewood

Restaurant for the night. Ii had my first lesson on the Qualcomm I do not like the keyboard.

I had to send a message to dispatch letting them know we stopped for the night and the

road conditions were bad. The problem is that the keyboard was designed for hunt and

peck, not a data entry specialist who doesn’t look to see what she keyed. I received a reply:

“HUH?” Earl called dispatch; I guess they had a good laugh after dispatch received the correct

message.

The quarters in this truck could not have been designed by a sane person. There are no closets

all clothes have to be rolled and placed around the edge of the bed. Earlier today I

was not a happy camper. I discovered what the doghouse is, and I climbed on it enough times.

That is what covers the engine in these cabover trucks. I still have no clue as to how to

change clothes or anything else inside this behemoth. I had to lay on my back and pull my jeans on then sit up and on my shirt.

December 30^th, 1995

We arrived in Bentonville, Arkansas but not before I found myself on a mountain with the

innocuous name Boston Mountain. Going up was bad enough, but when we got to the top

it was dark, an orange flashing sign got my attention: “Eight people have died going down

this mountain do you want to be number nine?” That did it for me, I looked at Earl and told

him I was walking down the mountain to which he replied: “No you are not, it was dark

out.” I think my fingernails are still embedded in the armrest of that truck. We got to

the bottom there was one helpful soul that said: “Awe come on JB this ain’t too bad is it?”

I made a grab for the CB but Earl got it first. We delivered to Walmart then went to the terminal

the truck needed a PM service, and we got a free night in a motel, maybe there were a few perks to

this trucking thing.

January 15^th, 1996

Happy New Year to me. I have been on the truck now for a few months. I have been on bumpy roads but I 20 in Louisiana in a cab over I need my head examined. I had, had is the operative

word in the sentence, a carton of chocolate milk. I bounced out of the seat hit my head and on

the way down wore the chocolate milk. Do not get me wrong, Louisiana is a beautiful and

graceful state but their roads are horrible. There is no other way to describe them, they have\

huge potholes like nothing I had ever seen.

January 30^th, 1996

Headed home for a few days, can’t wait to see my dad and tell him about my adventures.

October 22, 2024

Earl and I are now retired truck drivers, he drove for twenty-nine years and I was a professional

seat cover for twenty-two years. Do I miss it? Sometimes. I don’t miss being gone for months

at a time. I don’t miss cars cutting us off or sitting in rush hour traffic and moving two inches

at a time. I do miss the freedom of trucking, I miss the beauty that I saw out the window. I have s

seen pronghorn antelope, bald eagles, and golden eagles. I have seen moose running through the

middle of a small Vermont town. Would I do it again, since confession is good for the soul:

yes, I would.