ON THE ROAD AGAIN

My sales job requires me to drive anywhere from 400 to 900 miles per week. With all that time behind the wheel, I’ve made a few observations:

• It is critical—I mean absolutely CRITICAL—to learn the locations of all the rest areas, diners, and fast food restaurants in your sales territory. To quote a great thinker (I believe it was Shakespeare), “Finding thyself miles from the nearest restroom as the breakfast burritos kick in, is the cruelest of fates.”
   
• A particular fast food restaurant chain, which for legal reasons I’m not allowed to identify (other than to say the name might rhyme with “bick-bonalds”), posts this sign in the men’s room: “This facility is inspected by a manager every half hour.” I think they meant to say every half century, unless they define “inspected” as running in to use the urinal while ignoring the “All employees must wash hands before returning to work” sign. Also, I now know where fast food places make their bulk purchases of toilet paper: Home Depot’s sandpaper aisle.
   
• Most motorists now use sign language to ensure there is no lapse in communication. The most common gesture is a variation of the “We’re number one!” salute. There are two options: the two-fisted gesture while steering with your knees, or the one-hand-flips-the-bird-while-the-other-hand-pounds-the-car-horn technique.
   
• There are tons of interesting bumper stickers out there these days. I recently saw one with “JESUS LOVES YOU” and some small writing below it. As I pulled up closer to read the full text of the heart-warming message, I saw, “JESUS LOVES YOU — Everyone else thinks you’re an ***hole.” Yes, heart-warming. Stick-on emblems are also popular. There are Christian fish, Darwin fish, Christian fish swallowing Darwin fish, and Darwin fish in the process of evolving the “We’re number one” hand gesture.
   
• License plates have become works of art. Most states now have many multi-colored styles, including sunsets, puppies, beaches, sailboats, and, occasionally, some letters and numbers to identify the vehicle. Plastic frames from car dealers hide key information on many license plates, so you get the impression a particular car is registered in the state of Ed’s Toyota World. Vanity plates are popular, and usually tell us a lot more than we really want to know about the driver. Recently I’ve seen: IMHORNY, HOTSTUF, and TRIALWYR. Someday soon I suppose we’ll see other disorders and sicknesses proclaimed in public with plates such as: SEXOFNDR, IMPOTNT, and RSOXFAN.
   
• No matter how extensive your CD collection, when you’re behind the wheel many hours each day, every disk you select falls into the “I just listened to that one” category. As a result, despite thousands of dollars worth of stereo equipment in my car, I find myself listening to the news on AM radio most of the time.
   
• All highway construction projects are scheduled to begin on the same morning I just HAVE to be somewhere early. All projects take three times longer than expected to complete, except for those projects which are scheduled never to be completed (for example: I-84 in Waterbury). And all construction-related traffic jams begin just past the last rest stop for the next 35 miles—and always on one of those fateful breakfast burrito days.

 No matter how tough it is out on the highways, being a road salesman offers one advantage the guys in the office will never experience: the joy of sincerely saying to a disgruntled customer, “Uh oh, I’m driving into a tunnel. We might get cut—” and then pressing the cell phone’s Power Off button.