Remember back in the days when you were younger and there was a book or album or pair of acid washed jeans that you just had to have and your parents refused to buy for you? You would argue with them and then flop down on the couch in a state of despair and ask God why? Why did you saddle me with such loser parents who just can’t understand that life will end as you know it if you don’t get said item. You will be thrown into the pits of hell as you become the social pariah amongst all of your friends who all own (because their parents were not losers like yours) what ever item you coveted?

Ya, those were the days.

I had to have a pair of sixty dollar acid wash jeans that made me look like a skinny punk. I thought the world would end if I didn’t get them. I remember the joy of finally saving enough money to walk into that store, purchase those jeans and then strut into class looking like a flat chested, stringy haired geek who was wearing a pair of acid washed jeans the coolest pants in the whole world.

I may have been a geek to everyone else, but that day I felt like the coolest person in the whole class, except for maybe that girl in back who teased her hair really high and wore bright green eye liner. She was REALLY cool.

Lately, those acid washed jeans have morphed into something else. Something more expensive. Something slightly more useful. Something more like this:

I’m not picky, really. I don’t care what make or model it is. I just want a big shiny truck that can run over large animals and keep on going so that I can get wood in the winter and have a vehicle to take my garbage to the dump. I am tired of shoving bags of smelly garbage into the back of my lovely family car, a beautiful 2006 Vibe named Stella.

My husband points out the small fact that we’ve survived for this long with out a truck and we could technically survive forever with out one. That’s because he’s not the one shoving bags of smelly ass waste into his car and then having to hang his head out the window like a facking dog just to breath enough stank-free oxygen to get the garbage to the transfer station and not lose consciousness.

Boo also doesn’t want another vehicle payment on his hands. I get that. I’m a responsible adult. But I’m still allowed to dream. And whine. And needle him incessantly about how if he really loved me, he’d buy me a truck.

(I don’t believe in fighting fair. Heh.)

So when he was home this weekend and he was acting all weird, going to the washroom to make calls on his cell phone, trying to act coy and innocent, I knew something was up. It was confirmed when my sister magically appeared and ‘needed Boo to look at her car.’ But he couldn’t look at her car at our place, where all of his TOOLS are, no, he had to go with her to an unknown place to do this car looking.

A more suspicious gal might be inclined to think there was something rotten in Denver with that scenario. However, I am not a suspicious type of lady. I chose to believe that there would be some vehicle looking going on.

Some truck looking. Heh heh.

I was positively giddy. I was soooo excited. I kept imagining how sparkly and shiny my new truck would be, and what type of pretty name I would christen her with. I even went out to my car and lovingly told Stella that there would always be room in my heart for her, even if I didn’t drive her quite as often.

I phoned my best friend up and gloated to her about what an awesome husband I have. How he makes all my wishes come true. I did a happy dance in my kitchen as my birds and my dog looked at me and wondered what I was smoking.

I kept pacing by the window, watching for my husband to drive up with a fancy truck. Would it be red, or black or silver, I wondered. Suddenly, I could hear the sounds of a truck engine from just beyond the trees. I raced to the window to see my new toy and just about had a freaking heart attack.

Oh ya. I have a truck to call my own now. But you’ll only see me drive it with a pillow case tossed over my head to disguise my true identity.

I raced outside to ask my husband what the fack he was thinking. This was WRONG. On so many levels.

“What the hell, Boo? What is this?” I half whined, half cried.

“It’s sweet eh? And it’s all yours,” he said as he kissed my forehead, obviously mistaking my horror for excitement.

“It’s so ugly!!! And old!!!”

“Well, it’s got some years on it, but it’s not miled out and that rust, it’s just surface rust. Don’t you worry. This here pretty lady runs smooth as a knife cutting through warm butter. I’ve had her inspected and she’s almost as good as the day she was made,” he purred as he caressed her shiny red dashboard.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Then I had a flash of brilliance. “What about our hundred dollar rule? This had to cost more than a hundred bucks. Not much more, but still!” Heh heh. Anything to get rid of this atrocity.

“Well, it was wayyy cheaper than the bedroom furniture you bought behind my back.” Oh shit. Right. The furniture. Damn. There goes that idea. “Don’t you worry. I got a great deal from one of the guys on my crew. He owed me so we made a deal. It was a freaking steal!”

“More like we don’t have to worry about anyone stealing this hunk of junk.” My visions of a shiny new truck were now hitchhiking down the road looking for a new person to partner up with. I tried to swallow my disappointment and look a little happy, just because Boo was so obviously proud of himself.

After a few minutes of showing me the truck’s merits, he told me to hop in and give her a whirl. I was overcome with fear and panic. First off, someone might see me in this piece of shit. Secondly, it looked like it was about to fall apart.

Swallowing the acid taste of fear in my mouth, I climbed in as Boo slid over to the passenger seat. I looked at him and asked for the keys. He handed me a key ring for three keys.

“What are all these keys for?” I stupidly asked.

“Well, one is for the ignition, one is for the door and one is for your tool box in the back.”

Looking over my shoulder I noticed the dented and scratched tool box behind the cab. “Great. Cuz I have so many facking tools,” I muttered.

“Do I have to push in the clutch to start the engine?” I inquired innocently as my hands started to shake slightly.

“Oh no, honey. This is a 1984 model. They didn’t have safety features like that back in those days. Just be careful not to pop the clutch or you’ll lurch forward and smash into what’s in front of you.”

Great. No safety features. I guess I’m lucky there are facking seat belts in the bucket of rust that is now my own.

I learned about low, and bull low and double gas tanks and all sorts of neat things as we tooled around the neighbourhood.

Boo was so thrilled that he was able to get me an ‘acreage truck.’ “It doesn’t have to be pretty to be handy,” he kept repeating in hopes I would start believing his doctrine.

Fat chance.

Next thing I knew, Boo was driving down the driveway in his shiny car, heading back off to work and leaving me with my very own rusted out Tonka Truck to call my own.

There are just no words for how much I love my husband.

Or my ‘NEW‘ truck.