Mara and I both are already depressed over the prospect of leaving next Tuesday. I wonder how long it will take us to recover from years of this job when we finally come off of the road. This run is killing us in many different ways. It's physically demanding. But it's ever more demanding emotionally and psychologically. For instance, we've been home since last Monday. Almost a week. Neither of us feels particularly rested. Neither feels like we've had any real time off. We're like soldiers waiting to be sent back into the abyss. The thought never really leaves you, and it infects everything. We don't get much done when we come home, because it lingers over us so. Every second of every day seems precious, and we hate to waste it on anything other than relaxation. We don't want to go anywhere. We don't want to do anything. There are thousands of things that need to be done to the house, and yet neither of us has been willing to lift a finger. The most either of us has done was done when I cut the grass in the front yard. The backyard is still a mess. We haven't touched the bathroom (which still looks like a torture room in Bosnia).

I just don't know. We need to find some kind of motivation. I brought home a new bass earlier in the week. I bought a practice amp yesterday. While Mara says that I've acted like a kid because I've seemed so thrilled, the truth of the matter is that I haven't felt much of anything. There haven't been any great moments of joy; mostly because the prospect of hitting the road again has weighed so heavily on me, and on both of us. We could both feel better about the job if U.S. Xpress gave a fuck about us. But they don't. Our dispatcher doesn't care. We both know him well enough by this point to know that when we call him in the morning to tell him that our truck isn't ready, he'll get mad and say "they've had it for a week." He doesn't understand our jobs at all. He doesn't understand what it's going to be like for us next week when we have to run another week with no air conditioning. He'll bitch and whine when we get behind because neither of us can get any sleep in the back of a hot truck in early summer because he doesn't know what it takes to drive 600 miles or more.

We've begged U.S. Xpress for a new truck; because of our comfort issues, but mostly because of our safety issues at our customer in Chicago Heights, Illinois. U.S. Xpress doesn't give a fuck. Ray doesn't give a fuck. Ray thinks he's solved the issue by promising us the Volvo of some guy who is supposed to retire in June. He's going to have a surprise if he thinks we'll just take it no matter what; the guy is a smoker, and we won't be able to take it if the smoke smell is too bad (Mara is allergic to smoke). In short, if this company gave a fuck about us, our well being, or its customers, it would give us a new Volvo. We could kick ass in a new Volvo, and would be assured of decent rest and freed from the possibility of injuring someone in Chicago Heights; if only U.S. Xpress gave a fuck.

Mara has wondered if she can deal with this company and Ray until the end of next year. I'm beginning to wonder the same thing.