Mara and I are both a little depressed. This week has been a nightmare already. On top of that we have to deal with Bedford Park two more times, we're going to lose a day off and we fully expect to be fired soon. As for the latter, whenever we've had such suspicions it's been me being paranoid and Mara supplying the voice of reason. This time the timing is so suspect that we're both concerned.

Not that being fired would necessarily be a bad thing. We may never have the nerve to quit of our own accord, and our position is becoming untenable. Going into Bedford Park is like going into hell. They always treat us badly and fuck with us, so we dread going going there; that dread hangs over our entire week.

Ray isn't any help. He won't go to bat for us. From him we mostly hear "we have to keep the customer happy". That's easy to say when you work out of your home and are 700 miles away from the problem. When Ray calls corn he talks to Brenda, the boss. He doesn't have a pissed off Stan or Pam acting as if they literally despise you. Ray doesn't have to stand there, biting his lip, while Stan scours a perfectly good trailer looking for an excuse to reject it. Ray doesn't have to dread the day that someone at Bedford Park goes too far and he'll go to jail because 1 1/2 years of frustration gets dumped on someone's head (all it take for me would be Mara coming back to the truck in tears or close to it). Ray doesn't know what 6,000 miles a week does to the body or, along with this other shit, to the spirit and soul. Ray sleeps in his own bed every night. He goes in to the office when he wants to. He works at home when he wants to.

I'm not stupid enough to think that Ray's job is without immense pressure and responsibity. But I am saying that he doesn't know a goddamned thing about our job or the sacrifices we make. If he did he wouldn't be stupid enough to insist that the impact of every mechanical breakdown could have be minimized if we had left home a few hours earlier on Tuesday.

I suppose it's beginning to dawn on me that however our "safety training" turns out, it may be time to go home. We're weary in ways few people could imagine. And Mama wonders why, when we come for those few precious hours every week, that we escape into online role-playing games.

And speaking of Mama, she'll be 72 this year. She's in good health, but I desperately fear being in Chicago and receiving a call telling me she's had a heart-attack or something. We've been on the road for almost 5 1/2 years. Isn't that enough?