#trucker core

- Tricked out trucks with lights, decals, battered mascots zip-tied to the grille, your steering wheel wrapped with shiny leather, imprinted with your fingers and your palms. Scrubbing mud off your paint job with a stolen bar towel, shining it up with turtle wax and elbow grease.

- Rock or Country blaring out your open windows, a dozen battered tapes falling out your glove compartment while you try and figure out where you put that one. You can't take your eyes off the road, but you'll know the worn plastic case of your favourite mix by feel.

- Remembering each of the radio hosts voices, chatting along with em like they can hear you, maybe calling in to answer the occasional quiz question.

- Squeezing into the bed at the back of your cab, propping your feet against the wall so you fit in the small space, sipping gas station hot chocolate that's never quite as sweet as the stuff at home.

- Getting dressed in creased plaid or patterned shirts from your old duffle bag, overalls, high-vis jackets and threadbare straight-cut jeans. Steel-toe boots and a cap with your company's name on it, wooly socks with a hole in the toe.

- Rushing on the way to a job, late and stressed, patting your truck's dash and wishing she'd listen when you told her to hurry along.

- Arriving with time to spare, sitting in a diner at five am and debating the merits of apple pie over cherry with your buddies. Your trucks side by side in the parking lot, huddled together like old friends catching up.

- Cargo unloaded and on your way back home, enjoying the sights and singing along to John Denver so loud that all the other trucks in your convoy can hear you.

Maybe 2021 is getting to me but. Truck drivers have an aesthetic, and it's a solid one.