Wednesday, July 24, 2002

We're all settling into a routine. Up at 5:00 am, download email for later reading while roommate is in bathroom, shower when he comes out. (He's a night shower person, so we have no conflict in that regard.) By the time I get out of the shower in the morning, he's already downstairs in the lobby/breakfast room. I follow shortly. This being Wednesday, we had the re-constituted eggs (I have no idea what they are re-constituted from…I suspect yellow rain slickers) and almost enough paper-thin slices of orange to stave off scurvy.

Then, we take the bus to Rialto, CA, where the Truck Drivin' School is located. I usually have time to read and sort my email before the classroom opens up. In class, we had three quizzes (on which I scored 92%, 96%, and 97%, respectively) and, since I was one of the first to complete, I actually had time to work on some of these here web pages.

Lunch was as unappealing as ever. They've given us $5 coupons for lunch (previously advertised as one of two meals they give us a day), but no meals here actually cost $5 or less by the time taxes are figured in. They have every flavor of burrito imaginable, but they all look (and, I'm told, taste) alike. Today, the special promised to be different: Stuffed bell peppers. However, it still looked just like a burrito. So I got the cheeseburger. Again.

Driving this afternoon was much more successful than yesterday, for both Wayne and me. We each drove two hours in local traffic; neither of us made our trainer whimper, which we saw as an improvement. He pointed out that who would believe, having seen us trying to shift Monday, that we'd be driving so smoothly today?

We even relaxed enough to start sharing jokes, and then Charlie (our trainer) said, I have one about a homosexual. Of course I raised an eyebrow, ready for the worst; but I have to admit I laughed out loud at the punchline:

Well, damn. It can't be offensive to a gay guy if I laugh, right?

So then I shared my favorite, from a T-shirt I saw in Key West a few years back.