10/8/4 - Longview to US Bank to Home

Just back from pickin' up my paycheck from Longview where I felt lucky that I didn't run into the loadin'-dock foreman. He's always tryin' to ruin my day in a hurry. I was thinkin' on the way back home that if I didn't have a calandar or know what month it was, I'd somehow still know that it must be damn-close to election time just by all of the other timber-drivers bitchin' around the loadin' yard. Lots of "this or else". Lots of talk in Oregon yards about Measure 34 and how "it'll put us all out of work" or how it'll "give us lots of work". Lots of arguing about Bush "saving us from terrorists" or Bush "making things worse." Elections are fun...Right? You know what’s fun? Trying to get a loan. That’s a lot of fun. See, what you do is, you call up a bank, and say, “Hey, I’m a truck driver, I’ve got steady work, and I want to borrow a bit of money from you for a new rig.” They say, “Ok then, give us all your information, and we’ll see what we can do.” You say, “Ok, here: name, SSN, monthly-income, credit info.” Then they say, “Ok, we’ll let you know Tom,” and shake your hand. So then, you wait around for a few days, and finally, when you're just about "officially pissed and crazy", you call them back. That's when they say, “NO LOAN FOR JU!", like the soup-nazi on Seinfeld. Then your wife goes to bed crying, because this is the 4th or 5th time this has happened. Now THAT'S a lot of fun. And don't get me started about my insurance costs. Look, I may not know much about politics, but I DO know how hard I'm workin' and how little I have to show for it. I also know the same is true for ol' W. Bush. Lots of hard work and nothin' to show for it. So little to show, that he has to get up behind a podium and talk about what kinds of bad things Kerry might do, instead of tellin' me what he has done himself. Cause he ain't done shit. Like we voted against his daddy, Lorraine and I will vote against Junior based on our wallets. And our crappy health-care plan. And kids dyin' for an unjustified war. And a lot of other things. Basically, junior Bush keeps tryin' to convince me and Lorraine that his economic plan is "working" and ya know, I don't know where he's livin', but it sure as hell ain't anywhere around here.
-Tom