One Wild Ride

  

One Wild Ride

We had a twin-sized air bed on the top bunk—over six feet from the bunk to the floor. It seemed like a good idea at the time, until the cell phone started ringing. Naturally, it was on the top bunk.

Up the ladder I went, but just as I reached the top, Van turned a corner. Now, we weren’t pulling a trailer, which meant the ride was already "bobtail" rough. (Which is trucker-speak for 'bouncing like a pogo stick' because there's no trailer weight to smooth things out).

We were also on a very rough gravel road, hitting every rut and bump at about 35 miles per hour.

I was instantly off-balance—one hand, one foot, the rest of me swinging out into space like a confused circus monkey trying to cling to the ladder. I managed to scramble onto the bunk for safety, or so I thought. The airbed didn't offer safety; it offered a launchpad.

The bed turned into a trampoline. I wasn’t just bouncing; I was a rag doll in a carnival game. I hit the ceiling, then the window, then the back wall. At one point, I nearly launched entirely out of the sleeper and into the cab. In a moment of pure survival instinct, I lunged for the built-in storage bin and hung on for dear life. If that bin hadn't been bolted to the truck, it would have sailed through the air right along with me.

Meanwhile, the phone kept singing and sliding across the bed from me. I was pinned against the wall, watching it mock me. I realized then that I wasn't any closer to answering that phone than if I had stayed safely buckled in my seat belt down below.

Van finally looked back to see who had called. He saw me plastered against the storage bin, bouncing in rhythm with the gravel road, and finally stopped the truck.

"Hey, that’s not a toy," he said, looking at the bed. "You might have popped it."

Dignity gone, I climbed down, hair sideways and glasses crooked. My only thought as I looked at him was:

Give me forty acres and I won't kill this man of mine...