The NERVOUS STOMACH Series: Ego-Strategy 35 – Road Trip

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 

The NERVOUS STOMACH Series: Ego-Strategy 35 – Road Trip
Current mood:road trippy
Category: Life

Okay, I’m thirty-six and thinking that lay off doesn’t have to be as bad as it sounds. After all, nine percent of all Americans are in the same boat…and now I can have a cosmopolitan at noon. And I have more time to promote my new memoir, In Jupiter’s Shadow. I just overnighted a galley copy to FOX news yesterday, figuring stirring up a little liberal memoir controversy might give them something else to trash besides President Obama.

Instead of a mixing my favorite fruity drink, I throw a weekend pack and my first print run of books into the Honda and speed south. Cooper, my trusty spitz-husky, joins me for the ride. “Maybe we can find someplace to do a reading in Florida,” I tell him. He licks my face in response.

Sleeping overnight in one of those highway rest areas (to keep my laid-off expenses to a minimum), I wake in the a.m. to view the sun creeping over the edge of the rest-area building. “Time to get up, Boy,” I poke Cooper.

I think if I had awaked just 15 or so minutes earlier, you know, like 6:10, or even 6:15, I might have been able to avoid the whole thing. Cooper and I would have toileted and tramped on south at 70+ mph. Maybe to Myrtle Beach, and homemade fudge at The Island Fudge Shoppe. Maybe to New Orleans, and a hurricane drink at Pat O’Brien’s.

But no, I have to wake up at 6:30.

As I reach for the car door handle, in the rear view mirror, I see a tractor trailer bearing down on my teensy Honda and my 50 remaining copies of In Jupiter’s Shadow. I make out the banner across the top of the cab: FOX NEWS CRACKDOWN.  Damn that GPS I installed last month.

“Cooper, let’s GO!” I shriek, grabbing at my dog’s mane, diving out of the vehicle into the damp weeds next to the Interstate. Cooper, half awake, tumbles along with me. We’re about eight feet from my car when a terrific crash splits the morning air. The tractor trailer crunches over my little vehicle like a train smooshing pennies on a railroad track. Glass and metal peck the ground around us as spare copies of my book, shredded to a fine pulp by the impact, rain like confetti throughout the entire rest area.

The tractor trailer driver slows, waves, blasts the horn twice, then continues back toward the highway. 

Now I am not just perturbed. I am not just angry. I am furious! Furious for all of it: the endless news cycles about Health Care Death Clauses. The scrolling banners about Government Stimulus Overspending. And now, my shredded Catholic, it’s-okay-to-be-yourself-even-if-you’re-gay, memoir.

I leap to my feet. “AHHHHH” I scream into the morning air, already running to catch the rapidly accelerating truck, Cooper close behind. With a leap worthy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I land on the rear ladder, climbing onto the roof. I run to the front and, twisting the FOX NEWS CRACKDOWN banner off the cab, I use it as a springboard to rocket myself through the open rider’s window.

“Did you even READ my book?” I hurl at the trucker, pummeling his gut and opening his door simultaneously. He’s out and in the dirt before I can say “conservative bias.” I grab the wheel and slow the truck slightly, just long enough for Cooper to leap up into the cab.

“I hope FOX provides good healthcare benefits!” I shout to the trucker, as Cooper and I speed back up and head to the publisher for more book copies.
 

For FUN, I put my stuff at www.GregoryGerard.net.
For SERIOUS, I put my stuff at www.JupitersShadow.com.
I invite you to visit my stuff.