Hi everybody!

I see a lot of weird stuff in the news lately about Death Panels and Death Books. I don’t know a lot about those but they sound bad. However, I know a lot about Death Trucks because I see them on the freeway every day. The Death Trucks must have the same schedule as I because the same ones always show up. They are:

THE MOLTEN SULFUR TRUCK. These may come from Hell. They are en route from south to north, anyway. I see at least one every day. I don’t know who uses entire tanker truckloads of molten sulfur but I don’t want to work there. I also don’t like being right next to that truck. I figure a molten sulfur truck crash would be final in an unpleasant way.

THE ODORLESS PRESSURIZED NATURAL GAS TRUCK. You know the gas in the stove? When it leaks you smell it which means you can run like hell and call the fire department before you are 1) asphyxiated or 2) blasted into liverwurst or 3) both. This truck has a truck-sized cylinder of the stuff, at high pressure, without the smelly stuff. So I’ll be clueless and/or asphyxiated and/or liverwurst all at once when the small hole in the cylinder is going FSSSSHT and I’m behind it.

THE VERY HOT ASPHALT TRUCK. It looks like the other two but with a sign indicating that it’s entirely full of the street, except the street when it’s 1000 degrees and bubbly. I have a vivid imagination and I immediately close my window when I see the Very Hot Asphalt Truck. I don’t want to be the street.

THE STAKE BED TRUCK WITH POISON CYLINDERS. This is your basic big pickup with a wooden stake bed in it, driven by tired and beery working men. There is all kinds of pump and spray and goop splatter equipment in the back, and then there are ten or so big gas cylinders which are PRETTY MUCH secured with chains. The truck and the cylinders are all marked with skulls and crossbones, or the hand with the caustic substance burning it, and the fire symbol, and maybe a devil’s head. The guys in the truck are beyond caring. You know, if a cylinder like that falls over and breaks its valve, it becomes a high speed doom torpedo spraying poison out the back. That would rule!

THE TRUCK WITH THE BIG SHARP HEAVY BUT BOUNCY ITEM ON IT. You know this one. It’s a flat bed with a huge metal item on it. The item is pointy and protrudes from the back of the truck a few feet, and is thick and heavy also. It usually looks like a poorly sharpened rail for a train. It bumps up and down cheerfully in the back of the truck, straining at the slender chains and ropes that are draped lightly on it. It’s almost always at eye level.

and last but not least

THE AMATEUR MOVING TRUCK. You know how old WW II ships on the History Channel try to blow up submarines? They have this thing on the back of the ship that dumps oil barrel sized bombs every half second or so, so they burble down into the water and blow up and mess up the submarine. These do that with sofas.

And that’s my death trucks.