Do you want to know what life on the road is all about? I’m sure you do. It’s all about money. Not what you see, who you meet or what you drive. It’s a job, with a lifestyle, and like all other jobs with a certain lifestyle, it’s is all about the money.
It’s not about the detours or the scenery, the chrome, the size of your engine, what the DOT and OOIDA are doing, the truck shows or the truck stops. That’s window dressing and some like it, put up with it or just hate it. But bottom line, how much you have in your wallet at the end of the week is what it’s all about. Don’t ever try to convince me otherwise.
So with that planted in your brain, here’s a challenge. How much does it take to live comfortably in 2011? What do you need to buy groceries, have a nice car or truck, maintain a safe and efficient home, send your kids to a good school, afford good health care and go on a vacation or two during the year? No, it’s not $35,000, $45,000 or even $55,000. If you make that, you are scraping by, probably living paycheck to paycheck, and not saving any money or investing for the future.
In today’s economy, based on my research, you, not you’re girlfriend who does nails or works at Wal-Mart, need to be earning, driving a truck, a minimum of $65,000 a year to maintain the standard of living that our parents did. If you drive a little brown step van for UPS, I ‘m not talking about you. You are NOT a truck driver. You are a delivery boy wearing brown short pants schlepping boxes in and out of florists and pizzeria’s. That not what an OTR truck driver does. We work for a living.
If you earn that – $65,000 – I want to hear from you. I will profile you here on Life On The Road. You need to provide me a copy of your last W-2. Truckers tend to stretch the truth about anything and everything. It will be your good deed for the industry. Tell other drivers how you do it so they can follow your example. If you drive and also own another truck or two, that’s great, but you’re not who I want to talk to. The guy or gal I want is behind the wheel doing the job by themselves. You’re on the road, work either company or O/O and weekly you get a check for $1250, bi-weekly for $2500 or monthly (rounding off) $5500. You gross $65,000. I look forward to hearing from you.
Let me change gears here. Do you shave? That would be your face or (women) your legs. I know some guys that shave all over, head to toe. Unlike women they’re scared of getting waxed. I’ve seen many female drivers (passengers) with hairy legs and under arms. Disgusting. Men sporting beards are fine, but the ZZ Top “thang” when your doing some trucking jobs like flatbed, oversize and car transport is positively dangerous. But, to each his own.
Of course, there is another “reality” show, this one about long beards. I’ve haven’t seen it, don’t intend to. But, here’s my point to all this. Have you checked out the price of razor blades recently? I was in Target this afternoon and saw prices of $22, $29 and $32. The price of electric’s were over $100. Replacement blades cost $40 or more.
If you have a Mach 3 by Gillette, it comes with one razor when you buy it for about $8, new blades – for a pack of 4 – will set you back roughly $12.49. The price of new blades, if you can find them, in truck stops is considerably higher. The last time I was in a travel plaza, I only saw disposables, and they were ridiculously overpriced.
This begs the question of course, with blades costing so much, will we cut back or stop shaving all together? I have, at last count, about six old razors. Using old razors is tough, especially if you’re shaving in your truck with cold water, which is what I used to do. I refuse to stand at some dirty sink in a smelly truck stop rest room while other humans are answering the call to nature.
Just purchasing a new razor with a new blade is cheaper than the replacements. Is that Gillette’s marketing plan? Soon, new blades will cost as much as cigarettes. Maybe, as I said, we should stop shaving all together. What’s another unshaven truck driver? So, what if women have hairy legs and arm pits. Isn’t that fashionable in some parts of the world? Every try to shave your face with a Venus razor?
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