Ready

By Tanya Pike

I have a crush on old, run-down pick-up trucks. Not that I especially want one. But, they are useful in their own ugly way.

I blame this weird infatuation on my dad. He used to possess the world's crappiest truck. It was mostly red. It had the stick shift on the floor and every time he changed gears that thing would huck and buck and snap your neck backwards so hard it was painful. My 14-year-old self wanted to crouch down on the rusted out floorboards and die. Especially if he ever picked me up in it after band practice.

But now, of course, I look back on it (sort of) fondly.

We named it "Ready." Get it? "Red"-ey. That, and it most usually started somewhere near the first or the seventh try. "Ready!"

It wasn't that my dad loved owning clunker. At least I don't think he did. But, that was what he could afford. Also, he drove this truck into the woods, where he loaded the bed with logs that we burned to heat our house.

He didn't want anything too nice. Nothing he would worry about dinging or scratching.

Maybe we should have called it "Rough and Ready."

So, that explains my love for old trucks. They kind of remind me of what my parents were willing to do for our family and how hard they worked.

Now, when I start whining because I'm tired or because I don't think life is fair or because I don't think anyone is paying attention to me, I think about Ready and the rest of the parade of clunkers my parents drove. And I think about how Dad used to chop down trees and split them up so we could be warm every winter.

And I quit feeling sorry for myself.