Mike was having a good day, no scratch that, a GREAT day. He enjoyed his current life. He had a great job as a 18 wheeler driver. He loved driving down the open road, listening to some AC/DC while the surroundings blurred by at a steady clip of 70mph. Since he had converted to a freelancer after leaving J.B. Hunt Transport Service due to wanting more freedom over his hours, he had been enjoying life even more. He was currently going 80mph on Interstate 84. He had left Bremerton Washington state a few hours ago with a shipment of lumber, and was heading over to Salt Lake City.

He had been driving for a hours and was tired. While he loved his job, sitting and driving for hours upon hours was not always the healthiest. As Mike continued driving for a while, he finally started nearing Boise. He decided that this was a good of a time as any to take a break from driving and stretch. He closer into the city until he came upon a shell gas station.

Now, sitting in a semi-truck all day is obviously not healthy, Mike had a pronounced dad bod and definitely not what you would call fit. He wasn’t fat or anything, but he just didn’t have time to go to the gym. But while he waited for his semi-truck to fill up, he always made sure to do stretches and a few push ups. It wasn’t going to turn him into a bodybuilder by any means, but doing exercise every once in a while keeps him healthy. As he pulled over to get some diesel, he hooked up his semi-truck and got out. He started doing stretches and then a few pushups. I’m pretty hungry. Maybe I should get some food. He thought as his stomach growled. He got up and walked over to his truck. He checked the fuel and saw it was only 60% full. He shrugged and went to the cabin. Mike also made sure to eat relatively healthy, he wasn’t a vegetarian, but he didn’t really need to eat multiple pounds of sugar.

He went into the cabin and pulled open the fridge in the worth it, especially for the price houses were at now, so Mike just bought a custom sleeper cab. It wasn’t a luxury sleeper cab, but damnit it was his home. It was a respectable 110 square feet, with ae back. He didn’t like being in one place for too long, and thought that buying a house wouldn’t b small twin sized bed, fridge, a two heater stove, a sink, lots of cabinets with magnetic latches, a microwave, and even a fold down table. It was a pretty respectable set up if he said so himself. Better than a single bed or staying in a motel.

He had some pasta from two nights and put it in the microwave before nuking it. When it finished he walked over to the fuel gauge and saw it was almost done fueling up. He grabbed his pasta in a Tupperware and got out a fork as he started eating. Mike got out and walked over to his gas port and took out the fuel hose. As he finished eating and got back in his cab, he thought about his life so far. Wow, I’m so glad my life turned out like this. I literally cannot imagine anything going wrong at any point in the near future, or far future.

He pulled out and continued driving out onto the interstate. He continued on driving for another few hours until he finally started entering the city limits of Salt Lake City. At this point he had been driving for 12 hours. He quickly went to the unloading dock behind the warehouse owned by Western Timber Inc.. He go out and waited for the warehouses workers to get out there. After a bit a group of around ten guys came out of the back of the red tin warehouse. It was a very average warehouse. Why do all of these companies have the exact same designs? Someone needs to make a new design one of theses days, keep it interesting.

“Hello there brother!” The lead of the group called out to Mike as they came over. “Are you Mike?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“That’s me. Are ya’ll unloading this?”

“You got it! Just back up over here and let us unhook it and we’ll let you go. You should get paid online soon.”

“Got it. What’s your name?”

“Name’s Fred.”

“Well Fred, thanks for the help.”

As they shook hands the other people in Fred’s group got the warehouse ready. Mike backed up slowly to the area that they showed him, and after they put their hands up for him to stop he braked and put the semi-truck in park.

“Thanks Mike!”

After the group had finished unloading and disconnected the container (That is the actual name of the part that comes off), he started the semi-truck’s engine back up and backed out of the lot.

“See ya’ll around.”

“Bye Mike!”

As he checked the time, he saw it was getting late. He decided that staying overnight at a Flying J’s sounded great.

Mike pulled up his nav system and put some music on. He got on a freeway and then drove down to a Flying J’s, one of his favorite brands. As he was bopping along he once again thought about how great his life was. Damn, I love doing this. Nothing makes me happier than just trucking along like this. He pulled off go the freeway when he saw the sign advertising Flying J’s. Mike then simply drove into the parking lot and turned off the engine.

As he was about to get out, his phone pinged. As he got it out it was a notification from one of the apps he had that notified him about jobs he could do. This new one was pretty well paying due to being dangerous, as moving natural gasses is commonly, and only a few hours away from where the Flying J’s he was at was located. He clicked the button to accept and put a note about it on his windshield using a sticky note. He would set up a route before bed.

First he did his normal stretches. It was early November, and so there was some snow out and it was cold, so he did some jogging to warm up first. The snow was barely even visible, but it was cold enough that if there was some more precipitation, then it would start snowing and the roads would start icing over. Luckily, the roads had been fine for him. After his stretches, it was around time for bed for him. He got some of his toiletries out and another pair of clothes and went into the flying J’s.

While most people wouldn’t describe Mike as anti-social (He sure didn’t think of himself that way), people who drive for hours upon hours, or even days, alone are usually not the most extroverted of people. So Mike decided that he didn’t really want to talk to the clerk. And normally he wouldn’t, and he felt some existential feeling that he shouldn’t. Hey, why do I feel that way? That’s probably not healthy, I’ll go over and talk a bit before I take a shower. He went over to where the attached pizza place was (Flying J’s are actually so cool) and picked out a ham and Pineapple.

“I’ll have the Hawaiian.”

The bored looking clerk looked at him strangely before saying “Okay… Is that all?”

“Yep.”

“Well that’ll be fifteen dollars.” They said tiredly, Mike thought that they looked like a normal average white male with no extreme defining characteristics, but just standing around them made the feeling of wrongness a little bit worse.

As Mike got out his wallet, the clerk continued onto some small talk. “By the way, you should put chains on, the roads get icy this time of year.”

“Really? Huh, I was going to go without the chains just for tomorrow but I guess it is better safe than sorry.” Mike said as he got out his wallet and paid.

“Well, make sure to stay safe. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

Well that’s going to be a massive hassle in the morning.

As mike want away from the clerk, the feeling subsided. As he ate his pizza, he completely forgot about the interaction by the time he was finished with his Hawaiian pizza. He went over to the showers, and after showering, went back to his sleeper cabin. He was tired and would be going to sleep soon, but had procrastinated setting up his trucking route for later. He made a quick cup of Joe and set up his folding table. He had a cheap old laptop that he used for planning things like this. As he powered it on he also set up his wifi router. It had pretty fast connections and was crucial getting ready for jobs. He connected his laptop to a charger and plugged in an ethernet cable. He put up some mapping systems and put down where he would have to pick the things up and drop them off. He noted where there were rest stops, and finally his final destination in Colorado. He finished quickly, but after double checking decided it was good enough, and turned everything off before going to sleep.

He was going to have a hell of a time putting the chains on in the morning though.