Meteor showers and the return of the CB

I’m pretty sure there’s a distinct possibility we were abducted by aliens the other night. At least that’s how the story would go if I were telling it at the Counter of Knowledge. There was a flash of light, George said, “Holy sh*t!”, and we didn’t die, so there was either a tear in the space-time continuum, or we had a close encounter of the slightly disturbing kind. Also, it could have been a meteor.

I missed it, because I was farting around on the interwebs instead of looking out the window, which I tend to do a lot on this particular trip, since I’ve seen Footlong (formerly “Big Butter”) Jesus beside the giraffes on the roofs of the flea market in Ohio, the FLORENCE water tower in Kentucky and the big basketball of Dearborn approximately seven million times the past six months. For some strange reason, I still feel compelled to snap occasional pictures of Footlong Jesus, it’s probably for the same reason I have an abundance of pictures of the St. Louis Arch, it’s just so big and weird, you can’t help but take pictures of it.

Anyway, we couldn’t hear chatter about the alien abduction/meteor, because the cable on one side of the antenna was messed up, and our CB was getting in and out about nine feet from the truck, so we spent the rest of the trip home wondering what the heck the giant exploding light in the sky was. Given current world climates, things got a little scary for a minute, as I allowed myself to think about just how close we were to a tank facility, and what exactly it would take to light the sky up like that. George saw it and assured me it came from the sky, not the ground, which really didn’t make me feel better because that had to mean it was either Turdjerkistan war planes or aliens. (Welcome to my mind, where I’d like to thank my imagination for not letting us have nice things, like shooting stars or fireworks, and going directly to “code red” and aliens.)

We heard on then news later the flash of light was a meteor — apparently there was more than one, and they were whoppers, so I guess we weren’t actually alien-abducted or fired upon by the Turds, but head on a swivel, people. You never know when either could happen.

“Take me to your Peterbilt.”

The antenna got fixed before George left again, as first snow of the season has finally touched the Dearborn chassis run, and he wasn’t about to go without having a good, working CB. I stayed home for a hair appointment on the first snow run, and I ain’t too cocky to say I’m happy as hell to have missed it. I hate snow traffic — it’s terrifying to me, so I sat at the house and worried about him for 48 hours. The first phone call was reassuring, though, as I could hear the CB chatter in the background, loud and proud.

“CB sounds good, babe. Good job fixing it.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, but I think I’m getting out pretty good, I know I got stuff coming in from miles away, I think I heard someone speaking in tongues a minute ago, but it could have just been one of the Canadian guys.”

“You got fire in the wire, hunh?”

“Copy that.”

Let them truckers roll, 10-4. And please, if you don’t have a CB, think about getting one, and if you get one, use it for the tool it’s meant to be used as, not your own personal radio show about whatever nonsense you care to spew. It’s one thing to write funny stories and tell filthy lies at the counter, but the CB is a safety tool, and that’s what it should be used for.

Be safe out there.