Encyclopedia Tachycardia

The incense wafted from the altar as I sat on a cushion in the meditation hall. People were arriving yet for the Intro Class. I had a small Moleskine journal for taking notes and had brought my Easwaran translation of the The Dharmapada as well. My well traveled old knees and hips were not happy about sitting on the floor, but had given up complaining. She walked by, catching my eye just as Sunim was sitting down to begin. Yeah, I know. Casting an eye in the meditation hall - not so cool, but biological and instinctual. Sitting on the floor, hearing her pad by on bare feet, I had looked up just in time to see her right cheek go by. A pretty girl with auburn hair tied back and a clunky pendant on a wide ribbon, she crossed the room and sat opposite me on the arc of cushions.

It was Week Two of "Buddhism Basics and Meditation." Ever since I began to meditate, I have struggled with 'Monkey Mind.' I can't decide whether its a hallmark of a creative person or its just me. I know I'm not alone in this affliction, but it's also just me. When I sit my mind races. All kinds of images, memories of old friends and old vexes, temptations and distractions seem to ooze from my brain like spit from a saliva gland. The Ego screams and struggles to maintain its domination. The opposite of procrastination, rather than mindlessly NOT doing what you had wanted to do, its doing and thinking and sweating about not doing or thinking. Instead of struggling to conjure sheep to count, its the incessant thundering of a hooves - thousands of bison, wildebeest and wild horses - pounding across your scalp - defying your efforts to just sit quietly.

A couple times, I turned to casually peek at her again. We all shifted our posture and struggled for comfort on cushions on the floor. When she stretched a knee and leaned another way, a tattooed foot popped out from under her other leg. Dammit, a painted lady. I struggled to not think about what other tattoos she might have. She was way too young for me and I am not on the make these days; especially not at the temple.

The lecture touched on impermanence, emptiness, and non-self; marks of the Dharma. The teacher spoke of the unsatisfactoriness caused by the ego's attachment to its nonexistent identity. Most of our problems are associated with habitual thinking about the 'permanent' self and its relation to other 'selves.' As Westerners, we can't seem to help but intellectualize. An unseen guy behind me had trouble with the impermanence of the past and spoke up. He chafed at the zen riddle answers. The gal with the clunky necklace chimed in as well.

She was smart and funny; perhaps even stubborn. Curious and struggling to understand, she questioned persistently. Her fair skin glowed when she felt the room's attention. With a smirk, she chose to agree - for now. Having let it go, she sat on her cushion in a casual mudra; the backs of open hands on her thighs. Sitting up on the meditation cushion with her shoulders thrown back, she seemed effervescent and eager. The loose t shirt and her hair pulled back accentuated a delicate neck and fine features.

After we'd meditated, Sunim revisited the strong discussions in a huddle. He made sure no one had taken anything personally. Afterward, we all chatted over tea and chuckled at our struggles to understand. As I threw on my coat to leave, the clunky necklace gal stood in the entryway talking to the guy who had also struggled with impermanence. I excused myself and passed between them onto the sidewalk.

"Have a good night, Todd," she called after me.

There is a certain lightness that men will understand. Perhaps, women know the same feeling but I don't think they are affected as strongly. It doesn't take much for a man. A random woman on the street might have smiled especially sweetly, or a waitress acted as if she actually found you interesting. In a flash, without the chance of stopping it, a man can imagine what she would wear on their first date, what kind of apartment they might rent together and the color of their kids' eyes. And then, like a nervous tic, or some kind of brain chemistry episode, it just passes. He is only left with the lightness, a brighter look to the sky, an airy feeling in his chest just below the throat. Its about the ego; the self. Its about feeling noticed, feeling important; about not feeling non-existent. Admit it, its about feeling good.

I stumbled toward my truck, just two car lengths away. My brain dumped all kinds of feel-good stuff into my bloodstream. She knew my name!?! How...?!? Have I talked to her before?!? She remembered, why can't I?? This is might be cool...

I stepped off the curb at my truck. Something caught my eye, like a coffee stain or a dollop of errant ice cream on my chest. It was the company logo on the left breast of my trucker jacket. I slid the key into the lock. As I opened the door and sat down, like the snap of a twig when you're all alone, it occurred to me . . . wait . . . also on my jacket, on the other side . . . my name - Todd. The hissing, farting sound of my ego slowly deflating briefly drowned out the noise of the city traffic. Aaahhhh, she read my name.

but . . . she was nice enough to say goodbye. The flatlining ego still trying desperately to resurrect itself. Holy Tachycardia, Batman, I have a lot of work to do.

Zen and the Art of Egoless Driving, Lesson 3

Slow Down.

That's it . . . . just slow down.





OK, OK, I'll elaborate. I lived and commuted in Detroit for a few years. I've been there, done that, never got the t-shirt or, amazingly, a ticket. I did have to call for bail money once but that was completely unrelated to speed. Recently, I've spent 300,000 or so miles on the highways and byways. Not many of them in rush hour traffic but just enough. Enough hours in traffic in different places in the world that I can tell you that Detroit Drivers are the worst. In fact, there were only three times that I experienced anything worse than Detroit; all isolated incidents. Twice in Texas with a fatal accident somewhere ahead of me. And once in New York City, I was halfway from Long Island City to the George Washington Bridge when a Yankees game let out. It wasn't just the traffic jam, everyone in New York thinks they're special and were fighting like lemmings to get to the front of the line. One guy got so excited, he changed lanes without looking and rammed his sexy foreign car into the dollies _underneath_ a semi trailer. Luckily, not mine.

My theory is that Detroit is the worst because, up until recently anyway, nearly everyone in town was building cars or had a link somewhere in the supply chain. Therefore, Detroiters think of cars as toys. Everybody zips along in Detroit Rush Hour - 75 mph [at least] and 8 inches apart. OK, in Winter it was only 73 mph and people are playing it safe - 9.5" apart. Detroit Rush Hour was one of the first virtual reality arcade games. Everyone was playing. You're watching all your mirrors and scanning the horizon, vectoring the cars around you and strategizing. Some guy is barely in front of you and you slip in right behind him. You're running so close together, the heat from your radiator is fogging the chrome on his rear bumper.

Once we have entered the fray, we have to win. We'll cut in and out of lanes, pass on the right, jam the gears and the gas, brake, jam, brake, jam. Hell, we'd consider passing on the shoulder if it meant getting the jump on those out-of-state-plates driving the speed limit! When the inevitable happens and we get bogged down, we are livid. DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND?!?! I'VE GOT TO GET TO . . . to where? To work? You aren't nearly that enthusiastic about your job once you've made into the office parking lot.

Lets assume you have a 45 mile commute. If you drive 75 mph, it will take you 36 minutes to go 45 miles. If you drive 57 mph, it takes you a little more than 47 minutes. Is all that stress worth getting to the office 11 minutes sooner?

What about a 90 mile commute? Maybe you're in management and you live out in some verdant, peaceful suburb. If you drive 75 mph, it will take 72 minutes. Driving 57 will stretch that to almost 95 minutes! If you're in management, you are definitely going to tell me that those 23 minutes are valuable. Read on.

Now, some of you readers are on to me already. There is a problem in my examples, though I tried to word them carefully. The times are only valid if you could leap into your car while it was already doing 75 mph! And you'd have to average 75 mph for the entire trip. If there are more than a couple stop signs, or the inevitable traffic jam along the way, your average speed will plummet. Every time you slow down and/or stop, you are losing most of the 11 minutes you gained in the example. You're spending lots of driving time at the same speed as someone who is only driving 57 mph on the highway. Take it from someone who gets paid by the mile, just stopping to hit the john will spoil your average speed for hours.

So, back when I thought I was done, I suggested you slow down. Not only will your fuel consumption and maintenance costs go down, you will gain an even more precious commodity. . . peace. Tranquility. You can laugh at all the stress puppies flying by you on the highway. You can smile at those slow out-of-towners. You can get to work in a decent mood and smile at your coworkers. You will become unbound. Think of smiling at the threshold of your house in the evening. Imagine hanging out with your family without that lump in your gut; without the crispy edges around your burned out life.

There is something else that happens to me regularly out here on the road. Someone will fly by me on the way. At the next stop sign, rest area or truckstop, that same vehicle is right there in front of me; just pulling into a parking space when I enter the lot. Imagine your coworkers stomping in to the building, cussing under their breath and swallowing all that pressure. If you take the slow lane, you'll likely be sauntering in right behind them. Except you'll be smiling, noticing that the landscape guys planted flowers. You'll remember someone's birthday as you walk by their desk. You'll be happy enough to just start your day instead of heading for the coffee machine to bitch about traffic. Imagine how you'll feel that night at home. You'll notice how beautiful your family is, how lucky you are. You'll be living a life instead of fuming about traffic.

So what's it going to be? Five minutes sooner to a job you don't really like anyway? Or the slow lane, smiles and peace? Well, no stress on the road. You're still just a hamster in the wheel once you get to work.

Zen and the Art of Egoless Driving, Lesson 2

Jim Morrison growled "Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel." Sage advice while driving. However, certain occasions arise when we are tempted to lift one hand from the wheel and extend a particular digit in response to some traffic transgression that has occurred against us. We used to call this gesture the Tampa Bay Turn Signal.

Try this the next time you feel like thrusting that one particular digit at another driver: use all ten. In Eastern traditions to bow to each other as a greeting is very common. This is actually more than just a greeting. The bow, with palms pressed together like a Western prayer, a hands breadth away from the nose, is the 'sacred' in you bowing to the 'sacred' in the other. Call it the sacred or Buddha or Vishnu or God or whatever you would like. Or think of it as recognizing our common humanity in each other. It is hard to stay pissed off at someone you are blessing.

As we discussed in Egoless Driving - Lesson One, there is no reason to allow any more stress into your life than you already have. Let it go by recognizing that you are the same as the other driver. Occasionally, you get distracted too. The act of letting go, forgiving if you like, empowers you to leave it behind. You won't think about it all day. The stess will be gone - evaporated not from the heat but from the coolness of your response.

So next time you're tempted to flip, try bowing. Put your palms together and nod your head slightly. Its as much for you as it is for them. You may want to wait until they pass by. If it turns out, in traffic, you bless someone you know, they'll wonder even more about you.

Zen and the Art of Egoless Driving, Lesson 1

It has happened to all of us, in a crowded parking lot or maybe a four way stop with two lanes coming from all directions. Somehow, you just didn't see that other car. You both come to a hard stop. With a sheepish look, you mouth the word "Sorry." Or maybe you avoid his glance and drive away as your face burns in embarrassment. Your driving record is clean, a good driver, but you just made a mistake. Everyone does.

When the shoe is on the other foot, however, and we were the one brought up short by the distracted driver, we don't seem to think of it the same way. That guy is a moron. He drives like an idiot; shouldn't even have a license. Now wait a minute. If we can make the occasional mistake, why can't he?

When we react badly to the distracted driver, we are forgetting that we is just like him. There are a few morons out there, of course, but most of us get along just fine. Take your ego out of the situation. The ego loves it when it can feel superior to someone else. When you let the ego run unchecked, you are just hurting yourself. The superior feelings of the ego are short lived, but the stress will be with you all day long. If you get cut off on the way to work in the morning, it'll wreck your whole day. It is wiser to just let it go.

It is far better to live with humility. We are all human. There are good days and bad days, but most of the bad days are an illusion of the ego. Next time someone brings you up short, thank them whether they show any contrition or not. Thank them for reminding you of your own humanity; our shared humanity. They have allowed you an opportunity to practice letting it go. The Buddha says all thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred and violence are the result of a lack of wisdom - in all spheres of life whether individual, social or political. We could use a lot more "letting it go" in our lives. Maybe you can start a trend. Let some of your serenity rub off on someone, but no trading paint in the H.O.V. lane!

Reading Signs On the Wrong Highway.

I was on a road trip out East to see my brother and his family. The evening before, I had driven across the bluff over Lake Erie at Erie, PA. I love a blue horizon! Cutting the corner of Pennsylvania into New York and on past Buffalo, I spent the night in Williamsville, just off the thruway.

Next morning, out in the moist summer air, I tossed my bag and my guitar in the truck, and slammed the tailgate shut. In the cab, I set up to listen to some podcasts; even a couple from the nearby Rochester Zen Center. It was a bright, beautiful morning to drive the rest of the way across New York and into Massachusetts. I had breakfast at Bob Evan's and hit the road. Good grub and coffee for my belly, and some new podcasts; nourishment for my brain.

My route would take four hours or so to Albany and then just into Massachusetts to Chester. Around Albany, I-90 heads into Massachusetts and the NY Thruway heads Southeast and becomes I-87. As long as I made the turn to stay on I-90, I didn't have to think much to navigate.

On the south side of Batavia, NY5 comes alongside the toll road. My brain was simmering in the warm juices of an interesting podcast. My eyes are open, hands at “10 and 2,” but the auto pilot is engaged. Physically, I'm tooling down the highway at 70 miles an hour. Mentally, I'm sitting in the Rochester Zendo listening to the deliberate, even tone of John Pulleyn. Its warm and comfortable, a good dharma talk. Its quiet, feels safe and over there to the right is a RAMP TO I-90!! WHAT?!? Did I miss my turn already!?!? Where am I?

My brain grinds a few gears and roars into panic. My foot pulls back from the accelerator. I'm scanning the traffic beside and behind me, checking if I can still make the exit. On right shoulder is a solid guardrail. There is no opening; no gap for the exit. The ramp goes up and over a knoll and curves over to join my lane. It takes almost a mile for it to sink in that I was looking at a sign on the wrong highway. The sign wasn't for me, it was for the people on NY5 who wanted to join me on the Thruway.

If you aren't present in the present you are not really living your life. When we are consumed with what should have or could have happened, or perhaps, wishing something had not happened, we are stuck in the past. The paunchy former star athlete, or the aged former beauty queen, still trying to live their “glory days” are clichés of movie and song. We can't make good decisions for our current life if we are not actually living it. When consumed by the past, we are living in a world we can't change because it has already happened. We are reading signs on the wrong highway.

If you are consumed by the future, you have great plans, great hopes for some moment to come, some thing to happen. Consciously or not, we put things off today for those fabulous times to come. We can be consumed by some nebulous goal even while not making any actual progress toward it. Life is passing us by because we don't see it. The kid in the back seat whining “Are we there yet?” is not enjoying the ride. He can't see anything interesting along the way because he is not looking. When great moments, or great possibilities, come to us in the present, we cannot see because we are looking just passed them at some unfocused potentiality. We are reading signs on the wrong highway.

When we obsess about how things should be or are going to be, we cannot see how things actually are - reality. In order to move forward, in a direction of our own choosing, we must know where we are going to start. We must accept reality; accept things just as they are. In this accepting, we don't wish something else had happened. We don't ignore things as they are because we “aren't there yet.” When we are carefully aware of just where we are, good decisions can be made about where we want to go from here, and what we want to do next. We are on the right road and reading the right signs.

Don't Be a Tool!

When a tool is designed, it is designed to "do" something. A tool has no sense of being. It has no essential nature. As soon as the tool is in the hands of someone else, like a mechanic, it may well be used in any number of other ways. Tools lack purpose. The tool is only meant to do. It's nature is situational. Is it a wrench or a hammer or a pry bar or a belaying pin? It IS what it is being used for. Vice Grips are a special, adaptable friend of truckers everywhere.

Vice grips hold open the release lever on the Tandem Axles of a trailer. A heavy load, rusty rails or a trailer parked on an incline can make it impossible to adjust the axles. A pair of Vice Grips clamped on a partially pulled lever will often help release them. Further, when I had Satellite Radio, I had a pair of Vice Grips clamped on the outside of my cab with the magnetic XM antenna attached to them. This antenna base, a rusty old pair of Vice Grips, has over 200,000 miles on it. I've even used Vice Grips to pin open a curtain in the window of my sleeper.

Today, in our Ceaseless Society, we expect human beings to multitask; multiple doing. Jon Kabat-Zinn says that Human Beings should really be called Human Doings, because we concentrate much more on doing than being. We can't focus on doing something well while multitasking. If the coin of the realm is multitasking, hyper-doing, there is no time for, or any emphasis on, just being. No time to spend discovering our true purpose.

I heard this vivid phrase somewhere on NPR: Continous Partial Attention. Set your iPhone down for a second, if you are not giving full attention to what you are doing, you cannot do the best possible job on that task. If we live in the buzz of multiple tasks, we can't possibly be living the best possible life. If we are constantly switching from this task to that one, are we giving the people we love any real attention? any dedicated face time? Do we really know what we actually want to do with our lives? When is the last time you stopped and really thought through what you want to do next? what you really want to do for a living? where you actually want to live? What is your true nature? What is your purpose?

Doing sounds like action, but it is essentially static. The tool goes from one task to the next without growth. There is no choice, just the next task. When you are doing, you are not living or growing. Being is dynamic but does not exclude accomplishment. While Doing is the mindless accomplishment of artificial, unconsidered goals, Being is the accomplishment of goals on a path; toward a purpose. These are handpicked, specific goals, chosen to further your life rather than simply to get someone off your back or to get that report off your desk. Purposeful Goals add up to a life worth living.

Can we just 'be?' Do we spend any time to quiet the world long enough to hear ourselves? We are making priorities every day under the crush of To Do Lists, Five Year Plans, Lunch appointments and Meetings, but do we know what we really value? Is there happiness and joy or stress and misery? Without some quiet “being time” to get in touch with what we really value, can we safely decide on anything? Are we even aware of a purpose beyond getting the next task done?

Fortunately, you are not a tool. A tool would never rather be doing something else. It has no sense of anything else, nor of a purpose. As a human, there is much greater depth in purpose. This depth, however, is unreachable when doing outweighs being. When a person is consumed in hyper-doing, they become like the tool; an inanimate object. There is no compassion, no empathy. There is no joy in the life of a tool.

When we can reconnect to ourselves and develop purpose, we can live in parallel to our essential nature rather than opposed to it. We can find joy and compassion and real living. Stress and misery are absent, because living toward a purpose, by definition, is effortlessly doing what we should do because it is what we want to do. In Being we are investing time rather than spending it. So invest a moment in being. Quiet the world long enough to truly consider what is worth your time. Accomplish something essential; something parallel with your purpose. Just be.

It Takes One to Judge One.

After I had entered the complex and drove around to the back, I dropped my trailer in the crisp predawn of a fall morning. I was by myself until another truck pulled around. He backed into a dock a few doors down from me. We both had to wait for the Receiving Office to open up. I had seen him walking around, he was a big guy. Suddenly, Showtunes burst from his cab. I could hear the unmistakably strains of Broadway belting, thumping through the sheet metal. It is a bit unnerving to think of a big burly truck driver listening to Showtunes. And he was blasting them. I could just see some fan of John Wayne Gacy slipping out of his truck to come see me, [hey, big guy] in a Clown Suit, with a straight razor. I shivered at the thought.

It was about ten 'til five, the guard said that Receiving would be open by now. I climbed down to go inside. About three steps toward Door 43 and I heard another door slam shut. I looked over my shoulder just to make sure there was no clown suit. At the office, the door was still locked.

As the other driver walked up to meet me at the door, he had the lazy back-heal saunter of a dimwit. He made up for this by being twice the size of a normal man. To put a fine edge on it, he was rotund, spherical almost. He looked like the Batman's Penguin, if the Arch Criminal had fallen on hard times. He was in a tshirt and jeans rather than a tux and spats. His tshirt said “American by Birth. Christian by Grace.”

“Yep, after I leave here I go back into Indy and then to Oklahoma,” he said, as if I cared. His hair hung at odd angles, ripped as much as cut in the classic 5 minute Truckstop Barber Style. The sagging unshaven jowls gave him a unkept look that matched his clothes. I had to check if the printing on his shirt was metallic because the next thing he said was “Georgia Pacific, Muskogee, I hate that fuckin' place.” I could swear the moonlight flashed a little on the words “Christian by Grace," but I must have imagined it.

We stood there in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. He seemed like the kind of guy who would spend a half hour considering what he should say in a given situation. In the end, it would always blurt out, semi-appropriate and uninteresting. His wedge into the greater social world blunter and less effective than he had hoped. I know this to be true because I've often done it myself.

The Rotund One broke back in, “You got a garage door on that trailer?”

I was still a little sleepy that morning; more than I thought. Stunned, I cast a glance at my trailer just 10 feet from the stairs we stood on. Damned if he wasn't right! I had backed in to the dock without opening the doors. If Receiving ever opened, they wouldn't be able to unload me anyway. Who's the Dimwit now?!?!??

I kicked at the chock under my trailer wheel but it wouldn't budge. The trailer would have to be pushed off of it. The Rotund Driver had followed me over. I walked back up front and climbed aboard. As I hooked back to the trailer and gave it shove, the driver leaned over and pulled the chock out for me. When I pulled forward to open the doors, he stepped around behind me and opened them up. I nudged the dock and he stepped up the stairs and into the now opened office. He had done his good deed for the day and I had had a lesson in the futility of prejudging someone. When I got inside, I thanked him.

Lost in the City Requires Peace of Mind

I think it was Robert Pirsig who, while a Technical Writer, collected assembly instructions. He had a badly translated instruction for assembling a Chinese Built BBQ Grill. Apparently, most of the written instructions bordered on useless, but they began with the deeply Eastern “Assembling Barbecue Grill requires Great Peace of Mind.” As the author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," Pirsig rather liked this though it was likely more accidental than oriental. There are days, many many days, when Trucking requires Great Peace of Mind. And flexibility too, but any arguments of how many, or if any, truckers possess such states of mind is a topic for another day. On a recent trip to Chicago, I had the opportunity to practice my flexibility and had to desperately hang on to the remaining shreds of my Peace of Mind.

I hit Chicago about three in the morning. On the outskirts of town, I did a quick review of the directions I'd been given. Seemed like a straight shot; take the Tri-State up to the Eisenhower, second exit. The details were a little sketchy, but things usually work out OK. The first ebb of a night of evolving assumptions. Chicago, in the middle of the night, is not bad. There is always traffic, but at that hour, never enough to slow me down.

When I got off the Eisenhower, the sketchy details started to fall out of rather than into place. “Exit 13A, E US20. Go one block, proceed East on Lake St.” the directions calmly stated. East US 20, like all U.S. Highways, could be on a funky angle, but East Lake St. should be actually east [First Wrinkle of the Second Assumption]. It must be just off to the right [the rest of the Second Assumption]. Off the highway in the dark, there's a couple railroad overpasses, some tall old industrial buildings. A couple, like grain elevators, loom into the hazy mix of darkness and city lights. I creep along for about a block. There is a road here but it looks more like a driveway. In another block or so, there is a road to the left. “To East IL-67” a sign shouts at my headlights. My directions don't mention IL-67, so I move on [Yet, a Third Assumption].

Now I'm rolling down a typical Midwest industrial strip. There's a few corporate buildings, a forklift dealer, an auto repair shop, and a couple machine shops. I've gone way more than a block; probably four. Suddenly there is a large parking lot on my right. I step on the brakes, jam through a couple gears and lurch inside.

Its a big city “pay-to-park” lot for semis. If you live nearby, or just do a lot of business nearby, they have semi size spaces for rent. As I lope into the lot, a guard comes out of the office trailer. He trudges down the aluminum steps as I pull to their stop sign. Scanning his clipboard, the guard walks across the front of my tractor. The beam of each headlight swells to a glare on his shoulder and fades away behind him. I roll down my window and raise my voice of the grinding diesel.

“Sorry, I missed a turn back there. Can I just turn around in here?”

Without a word, the guard smiles, spins back around and waves me through. As I pull past him and start a big circle, the guard trudges right back up and into his shack. The lot is in good shape. Mercury lights buzz dimly over a big flat cinder lot. In the vagueness of city night, bright light bursts out of the windows from three sides of the guard shack. The unyielding contrast makes the guard shack like a Dec-O-Rama in a huge Museum of the City. The guard sits at his desk facing a small TV sitting on a file cabinet next to a well used coffee maker. The rigid industrial lines of the desk, the cabinet, the trailer and the parking spaces are mocked by the kinks and wild turns of the unbent coat hanger that has replaced the TV's antenna.

Back on the street, I retrace my steps toward the highway. If I was supposed to Exit on East 20 and then turn East on Lake Street, Lake Street is probably a right turn [recast Second Assumption]. It should have been obvious either way; maybe that driveway looking entrance was the right place [A Fourth Assumption]. Having seen no better alternative, I stopped in the left turn lane, across from the driveway, straining to read the unlit signs crowding the other curb. I flicked the brights on. One hopeful looking sign is completely useless. Eric Hiscock said “Fortune favors the reckless.” So I turned in.

Its definitely industrial. I pass a trucking company at the base of one of the grain elevators. Off to the right is a large cross dock with several semi trailers. That is promising but I can't find a street to get over to it [Fifth Assumption]. Suddenly I'm funneled into short pole building. As I enter, bright lights flash on and the interior explodes into stark detail. I keep rolling slowly through. Without a sound, its dark again. My night vision is shot, but another brightly lit, squat building is just ahead. I pull under a structure like a toll booth. There is a unit like the drive thru bank below my window. I've been transported into some Terry Gilliam Postmodern landscape.

There's a click and the hum of a small room behind an old analog microphone.

“You're lost. Aren't you?” blares a happy voice from the tinny speaker. Central Casting from Gilliam's Brazil couldn't have cast a better, vaguely ethnic, beguilingly cheerful disembodied countenance.

“Yeah, I'm looking for Jewel/Osco but I'm not doing very well. Do you know where they are?”

“Well, this is the railroad. You didn't look like you were headed for the railroad. That might be them over there to your right.” The happy voice oozes with empathy. He's been lost in the city at night too. “Turn left as soon as you leave our exit gate.”

My truck rumbles into the rail yard; another big circle. More post industrial buildings with weird catwalks and railroad sidings. There are monstrous cranes that swallow a whole rail car, lift off the container and then spit the car out again. Guys in yard switcher engines, pickups and, oddly, a Volvo. Hard hats, steel toe boots and worn denim wander everywhere. They all carry a smirk knowing I don't belong here tonight.

Out the exit gate and . . . there is just no way to turn left. Even a small car couldn't turn left. To go left is to climb a concrete barrier, leap to a scale the chain link fence. Then over the razor wire and you're in. I've had enough of this fun and pull over most of the way down the driveway.

The small scale map of Chicago in my Atlas is no help. Not enough detail for the rail yard or even Lake Street. I look at my phone. It can reach the internet, but a detail map on that little screen is like looking at a computer circuit board; lots of unlabeled lines and intersections none of which I can decipher.

Its then when I have a vision. The sun is suddenly shining behind a large cloud. Angels appear from the left and the right. They bend over in unison and put big brass horns to the backs of their robes. In a glorious God calling chord, the cloud shimmies open like a Punch and Judy Stage. Monty Python's Old Man God appears complete with his cut out, nut cracker mouth. His chin slips up and down, just out of sync with the audio and he says, “Viaduct Clearances for Chicago Streets and surrounding neighborhoods.” And with that the vision dissipates into a spray of confetti and a some noise of the bowels. They're all gone, but I'm digging through my truck stuff with a determined grin.

In the Seventeenth month of my tenure, I have yet to touch a map that I was given at orientation. Miraculously, the map is called “Viaduct Clearances for Chicago Streets and surrounding neighborhoods.” In the chaotic world of freight shippers in the Chicago Area, you cannot cut across town on the surface streets without checking for low bridges. However, I have never had to cut across town in this manner and have yet to even unfold that nearly forgotten map. The very map I was now clawing open.

The Front side of the map is all downtown City of Chicago in close detail. With a sigh of relief, the back side is “surrounding neighborhoods.” There's Lake Street! It _is_ IL-67!! That changes everything. Scanning the map for my next assumptions [Sixth] I see that IL-67 is the Northern border of Melrose Park, my destination. The sketchy details in the second half of my directions are “Take Lake St. East to 15th Ave. Proceed past first stop sign. Jog and continue to second stop sign. Turn left on Armitage. Jewel/Osco is on the right.

The Trucker Logic goes if IL-67 is the Northern Border of Melrose Park, the destination. Then traveling East to get there, I must turn right (south) to get to Jewel/ Osco Receiving [where was I?, seventh! Seventh Assumption]. With a new confidence, I exit the rail yard, find the loud “To IL-67” sign and turn left. At IL-67/Lake Street, I turn East (right). Whoever looked up these directions on Google Maps must have thought that you could easily take Exit 13A to East US20 and “Proceed to East Lake St.” However, not being from Chicago, not knowing IL-67 _was_ Lake Street, . . . I was lost and in the dark in more ways than one.

Cruising down Lake Street, I crossed 35th Avenue. Twenty blocks to go. Then there was 25th Ave.; right on time. There was a big Jewel/Osco logo on the left. WHAT!?! Rolling past in the dim light of dawn, I watch the Jewel/Osco facility move by. There is a sign I can't quite make out by a truck size driveway. Several Potential Assumptions flip through my caffeine addled brain. Did Jewel/Osco move and my directions are still to the old location? Is that the dry goods warehouse and perishables is down 15th Ave.? Should I keep moving or stop and ask? Should I join the circus? Where is my other blue sock? Oh, never mind.

I've pulled a semi through lots of cities, including New York City, the Big Apple, where I once parked tractor and half a trailer, illegally, on the sidewalk for four hours while being loaded. My big city instincts have me pulling to the left without really thinking. The place to be for a confused truck driver, in the big city, as the morning traffic is about to start, is the left turn lane, mid block. Safely in the center, I pull on the four way flashers, set the brakes and stop to think; or find a stiff drink.

I can see 15th Avenue, a block or so up the street. Craning my shoulders, I can see back toward Jewel/Osco. Their logo and color scheme is orange. I can see orange trimmed buildings, behind the stores on the street, coming most of the way up toward me. There is a big facility back there. There is also no good reason to have dry goods and perishables several blocks apart. In the liquid logic of suburban boundaries, Jewel/Osco is on the North side of IL-67. This puts them outside the primary color shading of Melrose Park on my map, but apparently inside the actual boundaries of the town in real life. The unspecified turn on 15th Avenue must therefore be left or North [the Final Assumption?]

The smoke test will be the two stop signs and the jog. If I turn left and see them right away, I've made the right guess. If not, I'll need another large space to turn around in a big circle and a new assumption.

Before I even complete the turn, I can see two stop signs, askew. I'm on the right path. From completely lost to making the delivery, I ended up only twelve minutes late. Another nearly Zen night on the American Byways.

Karmic Deficit Imbalance

So, just when I thought I was pushing my luck with Weigh Stations, I hit the jackpot and drained my Karma all in one fell swoop. I'm upside down like the Chinese Trade Deficit. I had passed closed stations when I knew I was pushing the GVW limits, I've gone East when only the Westbound Coop was open; only to find the West closed and East open as I passed the other way. I bless my luck but thought I was near the end. I even wove my way through the Irish Hills of South Central Michigan to avoid scales on I96 and I94; wasting hours and driving miles I would never get paid for.

Monday I picked up a load in Lexington, KY. I meant to scale at the Pilot at the 129. Talking on the phone, I drove right past my exit - oblivious. Suddenly the Kentucky scale on I75 Northbound appeared around a curve. I was "all in" whether I wanted to be or not. I rolled on through and assumed I had been blessed. No holy water or chants, but I figured if they didn't stop me my weight was OK. You know what they say about A S S U M E.

Well, I sauntered my way through the hills of Kentucky and down into the Ohio River Valley. I passed through Florence Y'all and into Cincinnati. The bypass is a broad circle and way too many miles. In midafternoon, after hitting I71 just over the river, I pulled right through town. I was on a tight schedule, but was doing good. I had had to take a 10 hour break in Lexington and picked the load up at the very end of my pickup timeframe. This left little time for breakfast or any other goofing around on the way to Delaware, OH.

As I came upon the Ohio Scale, their sign glowered "OPEN." No problem - I've been blessed by Kentucky DOT. Imagine my shock, dismay and general put-out-ness when Ohio had the audacity to tell me to pull around behind. Damn! This is never good and often the worst possible thing.

I gathered my logbook, checked that I knew where my Medical card was, got the Bills of Lading and climbed out of the tractor. The scale lady poked her head out of the building and told me to pull back around front, but stop on each axle.

I pulled around and got rechecked and carefully weighed. This is the trucking equivalent of a colostomy. Her voice scratched and tore at the intercom, "Pull around back again and bring in your truck and trailer registration."

She didn't say logbook, and I was at least 45 minutes ahead of my log, so I left it tucked away in the cab. I pried open the trailer capsule and took the paperwork inside.

"Today's your lucky day," she cackled.

"I don't feel lucky at this very moment," I moaned.

"Well, they just called my Trooper away to an accident," she informed me. "There's no one here to write you a ticket. They just saved you $157."

If it wasn't for the clinical stainless countertop, the security cameras and her badge, I would have climbed over and hugged her. Instead, I thanked her and made my way to the door. I fought off the smile until I was completely out of the building, out of sight.

Then it hit me. I need a Trillion Dollar bailout just for my Karma. I've been walking old ladies across streets, kissing lepers, dropping change in tin cups and prostrating myself in front of all kinds of craven images ever since.

I'd rather be Lucky than Good, but this is ridiculous!