Originally posted to Adult BackWash, my weekly column was Bait and Switch: Friday July 19, 2002
I drove the old Ford truck today. These days it looks more like something you would leave out in the back 40 acres for picking up hay bales now and then. It does seem to run ok, I didn't have any trouble with it. I thought I might when I got my first real look at it. I hadn't seen it since Todd and I drove around in it while we were still dating. I guess that is 3 years ago, or more. Poor old truck, I felt sorry for it.
It was "interesting" to drive. I can't pick another word. Not challenging exactly, I didn't have any real problems. It was exciting. All that horse power (all 8 or so of them) and the hugeness of the truck itself. When I stood outside the truck it was taller than I am. Just to get in I had to half climb up to the seat. Rufus, as I began to call him, could easily drive right over most of those other cars on the road and I would have just thought it was roadkill.
Driving Rufus was fun, if a little too exciting, around some of those corners. Rufus just has so much power, one tap on the gas and he wants to fly off the handle. At one tight corner I thought the whole truck was going to tip over and tumble down into the ditch.
On the deserted backroad, well paved but no cars or houses, I let Rufus have his head. I could tell he wanted to all day, he was just holding back. Just a bit of pressure on the gas and Rufus surged forward with a roar. I took it up to just over 120 K. Rufus is old but I could tell he would have liked me to let him race and hit that 140 K mark where the spedometer ends and its just Rufus and the bare roadway ahead. But I held him back, images of small animals and pedestrians pushing themselves into my mind.
I'd definitely take Rufus out on another date. Beat up as he is, he had a powerful, masterly style. I told him, if he was a real man I'd go for him, all the way.
