By Number Three
Just like any other morning during my time in the fourth grade, I had awakened and eaten breakfast. I was about to leave my house for the bus stop when I chanced to look up at the clock on the wall. 8:30. All well and fine, except for the fact that the bus came at 8:32. One long string of fourth-grade-appropriate expletives later, I was out the door and sprinting down the street. 8:31. Barreling around the corner, I was just in time... to see the bus driving off.
There I was, a sad dejected fourth grader with nothing more than an extremely limited vocabulary for expressing the natural feelings inherent in such a situation. I had just made the mistake every self respecting elementary school student dreads and begin to prepare myself for the 10 year old's equivalent of the walk of shame that accompanies it. Oh man, life's a bitch.
Cue cloud-parting miracle... now.
I heard a low rumble. Akin to the type one would experience right before having their bedroom wall run down by an Abram at 2 in the morning. I looked up, prepared to meet my fate at the trunk of a rabid rampant elephant in full battle gear. Alas, what I saw was not, in fact, a legendary beast, nor was it a 21st century battle tank. It, ladies and gentlemen, was the source of my salvation.
A large green behemoth had pulled up next to me. Its metal skin glinted in the morning sun, a large forked arm was attached to its front, and it exhibited a peculiar curved rear. A large WM was prominently displaced on its side. In the drivers seat sat a man at least four times my size. He turned his head and I caught my reflection in the lenses of his silver aviators. AC-DC's "Highway to Hell" echoed out of the cab. "Hey bro", my savior boomed, "I saw you miss that bus. Can I give you a ride?"
Boy, had my luck changed. Still speechless from the sheer level of coolness that had suddenly descended upon me, I climbed into the cab with my new-found padre. "Hang tight", he said as he shifted his beast into gear, "I'll have you there in no time at all". Had the vocabulary been available to me at the time, I believe the following word would have been used to describe my situation: 'Fuck!'.
We lumbered forward, AC-DC power rifts lighting our path. At twenty miles per hour in a twenty ton vehicle, I was about to become the coolest kid in the school. Possibly the coolest kid ever to walk the halls of the school. My classmates would speak of my triumph for decades. The teachers would want my autograph. No one messes with you after you show up to school in a fucking trash truck.
As we rounded another corner and the school came into view, the elation of victory swept though me. Caesar didn't feel this good when he marched back into Rome after winning at Munda. We pulled up to the school. "Here we are bro. Take it easy.", the driver said. I believe my response was something along the lines of "Thank you my Lord and Savior, for you have delivered my from darkness into light". But to tell you the truth, my memory's a little shady on the topic. I hoped out of the cab and landed on the ground.
I was Neil Fucking Armstrong. One small step for a fourth grader, one giant step for never having to worry about my street cred again. My classmates stared in awe. I think some of them may have bowed. I paraded into the school leaving pure Awesome in my wake.
But this story isn't about the petty struggle for respect that every fourth grader faces. It's not about how cool I may have believed myself to be. In fact, its really not even about me. There are only two thing I hope you take from this.
The first is: Nothing makes you feel empowered like riding in a fucking trash truck. Nothing, nadda, nilch.
The second is: No matter what you grow up to be, no matter which company your grow up to own, no matter how big your office is, how famous you may become, or how many cars you fit in your suburban garage, you will never, ever, be as noble as the person who grows up to be an aviator wearing, hard rock playing, wise beyond explanation, trash truck driver. And no matter how much you might think your going to change the world, you have nothing on the men and women in the waste reclamation business who are changing it everyday, one dejected fourth grader at a time.
Anyone want to reevaluate their wish to get a a degree in business?
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