One January night, I called my husband, Rick, and our 20-year-old son, Thomas, to supper. They were outside tinkering with Thomas’s pickup truck. The three of us sat down at our old farm table.<\/p>\n
After Rick said the blessing, I passed the mashed potatoes and asked how things had gone at work. Rick runs his own auto-repair shop and Thomas, a college student, works for him part time.<\/p>\n
Rick elbowed Thomas. “Go ahead. Tell her.”<\/p>\n
Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good.<\/p>\n
“We saw an Army truck for sale on eBay today,” Thomas said. “It looks awesome.”<\/p>\n
I had a bad feeling I knew where this was going. Still, a woman could hope. “Is it cute, like a little green mail truck?”<\/p>\n
Rick laughed. “I wouldn’t call it cute. It’s a deuce and a half. We’re thinking about buying it,” he said casually, as though they were considering a Matchbox car collection.<\/p>\n
“A deuce and a half? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But I could tell by the gleam in his brown eyes that my husband was way beyond reason. His sense of adventure was going to ruffle my quiet, peaceful world. Again.<\/p>\n
That’s what happens when an introverted bookworm marries an extrovert who thrives on fun and hobbies—the wilder, the better.<\/p>\n
“Means it can hold two and a half tons of cargo,” Rick said. “An Army truck makes a statement. Especially an old one.”<\/p>\n
I don’t like making statements. I like to fit in, not stand out. I love cooking, sitting on the porch with a book, walking in the woods. Why couldn’t Rick be more like me? Now he was filling our son’s head with peculiar ideas. I could understand that they love cars, but Army trucks?<\/p>\n
“You gotta see it, Julie. It’s incredible.”<\/p>\n
“Don’t you ever want to do normal things like other men? Play golf on Saturdays, and—”<\/p>\n
“That’s no fun. Besides, the truck will be a great advertisement. I’ll get the business name and our phone number printed on the side.”<\/p>\n
I cringed. Our name in bold letters. For the whole world to see. Couldn’t he get a website like everybody else?<\/p>\n
In 34 years of marriage, Rick has had more than a few crazy ideas. Building a log house. Rescuing parakeets and constructing an outdoor atrium for them. His plans had worked, but they were so radical. So risky. So strange. So public.<\/em><\/p>\n I glanced at Rick as I cleared the table, thinking, This time you’ve really lost your mind! <\/em>He and Thomas tried to show me the truck on eBay. I refused to look. Maybe if I ignored their plan, they’d forget about it.<\/p>\n The following Sunday afternoon Thomas texted me. Ask Dad if he wants me to bid on it. <\/em>That’s another thing. Rick loves his big blocky old cell phone, which is so antiquated it doesn’t have texting capabilities. I’d begged him to upgrade and learn to text, but I was wasting my breath.<\/p>\n I read the text to him in a flat tone. I’d lost the battle. I’d never be able to change my husband.<\/p>\n “Tell Thomas whatever he wants to do is fine.”<\/p>\n “This is insane! Bidding on some junky truck you’ve never seen. How are y’all paying for it?”<\/p>\n “We’re splitting it. It’s two thousand four hundred fifty dollars. These trucks usually sell for fifty-five hundred or more. If we ever decide to, we could sell it for scrap metal and make our money back. Plus, if there’s an emergency, the truck’s a workhorse. It can run on anything—even water, temporarily, and it can push cars off the street,” he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Push cars off the street? Oh, Lord…<\/em><\/p>\n Rick couldn’t keep a straight face, though. “I’ve never heard of anything more ridiculous in my life,” I snapped. I sent Thomas a text to place the bid. “Where’s this miracle-working truck?”<\/p>\n “Savannah.”<\/p>\n “What if you get there and realize that I’m right?” Surely nobody could have this many far-out ideas and have them all work out fine.<\/p>\n “It’s listed as being in good condition. If the seller’s misrepresenting the truth, we won’t buy it. Relax, Julie. This isn’t a big deal.”<\/p>\n Before I could respond, Thomas called saying they’d won the auction. My mouth went dry. We now owned a huge old Army truck. I handed the phone over. Rick congratulated Thomas, then invited me to ride along with them to pick up the truck. I declined. I wasn’t going to be seen in that thing.<\/p>\n Saturday morning, they got ready for the almost 600-mile round-trip to Savannah. “Life’s too short to live like everybody else,” Rick said. “Have a little fun, Julie.”<\/p>\n His words pricked my heart. I said goodbye and plodded to my office. I didn’t get much work done for looking out the window. Lord, why is Rick driven to be so different? Why does he like loud things? Don’t risks scare him a little bit? Isn’t he ever afraid of making a mistake? Of looking foolish? <\/em><\/p>\n At five o’clock, i heard a low rumble. I peeked out the window again. The Army truck was lumbering up our long gravel driveway like a camouflage-colored mastodon. Much worse than I’d imagined. Bigger than a giant dump truck.<\/p>\n I walked outside as Thomas parked the beast. A deuce and a half? It was more like a doozy and a half. Even our dog approached with caution.<\/p>\n “Isn’t it great?” Rick said.<\/p>\n I was speechless. He was going to drive this around town? Where people could see him? With our family name plastered all over it?<\/p>\n Thomas jumped out of the cab. “Check it out, Mom,” he said.<\/p>\n “A few years ago,” Rick said, “Thomas and I talked about how neat it would be to have an Army truck. Sort of takes me back to playing G.I. Joes.”<\/p>\n Did he sit around thinking of crazy new things to try? Why couldn’t he be content with life exactly how it is?<\/p>\n Rick squeezed Thomas’s shoulders. “Two-hundred and eighty-eight miles of shifting gears. Rough ride, wasn’t it?”<\/p>\n Thomas smiled. “Wasn’t too bad.”<\/p>\n I studied the ugly creature without saying much. What was there to say?<\/p>\n The following afternoon, Thomas invited me for a ride. I didn’t have it in me to say no. “Take your coat, Mom. It’s gonna be cold.” The Army truck waited, parked in the woods. Lurking <\/em>would be more like it. At least no one could see it from the street.<\/p>\n Carefully, I climbed up the tall step and slid to the middle of the thinly padded metal seat. Rick sat beside me and Thomas drove down the driveway. There was no heater.<\/p>\n “Guess what we’re naming it,” Rick hollered over the engine’s roar.<\/p>\n “The Refrigerator?” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The General. It was made in 1970,” Thomas said. “A piece of American history. It goes fifty-six miles an hour and has only forty-five thousand miles on it.”<\/p>\n Thomas turned right onto a main road, exposing us to the curious expressions of onlookers. Some even gaped. I didn’t blame them. We were absurd. I looked for something I could crawl under.<\/p>\n Then I noticed cars slowing to let us enter traffic. And even though the truck made a terrible racket, neighbors smiled and waved. Nobody jeered or pointed. Just the opposite. I could see excitement shining in their eyes. This truck was something different. Something interesting.<\/p>\n