Quote of the Day

It isn't just the idea of a woman in a truck. At this point, they're everywhere. The statisticians tell us today's woman is as likely to buy a truck as a minivan. One cheers the suffrage, but the effect is dilutive. My head doesn't snap around the way it used to. Ignoring for the moment that my head (or the grey hairs upon it) may be the problem, I think it's not about women in trucks, it's about certain women in certain trucks. Not so long ago I was fueling my lame tan sedan at the Gas-N-Go when a woman roared across the lot in a dusty pickup and pulled up to park by the yellow cage in which they lock up the LP bottles. She dismounted wearing scuffed boots and dirty jeans and a T-shirt that was overwashed and faded, and at the very sight of her I made an involuntary noise that went, approximately, ohf . . .! I suppose ohf . . . .! reflects as poorly on my character as a wolf whistle, but I swear it escaped without premeditation. Strictly a spinal reflex. (My friend Frank once walked around a street corner and came face-to-face with a woman so stunning he yelped, "Jesus Christ!" This from a poet and charter member of the local Student Feminist Alliance.) the woman plucking her eyebrows in the vanity mirror of her waxed F-150 Lariat does not elicit the reflex. Even less so if her payload includes soccer gear or nothing at all. That woman at the Gas-N-Go? I checked the back of her truck,

Hay bales and a coon dog crate.

Ohf . . .!

- From Truck, A Love Story by Michael Perry

By The Book - proceeds to benefit ACF