The Moron Helps Drive a Truck - Part 2

By the time the Moron had all of the Commodities stacked on the shelves inside the back of the truck, his bowtie was damp with sweat, and he desperately needed a Barky Bar.

"You go on without me," he said from the floor, where he lay flat on his back with one arm tossed over his honest brow.

"I can't," said the driver. He poked the Moron in the chest with his crutch. "Because of this."

"I don't think I'm going to make it. Tell my cats I hate them." He curled up into a ball and began snoring.

"We'll stop at a doughnut place," the driver said with a rising inflection. "Buuuut I suppose you wouldn't be interested in doughnuts, being dead and all." He looked back over his shoulder to see what effect this had on the Moron, but he was gone.

"Come on! That ol' highway's a-callin our names. It's calling me 'Ignatius' for some reason, but I'll let it go this time. Pedal to the textured polymer floor covering!" the Moron hooted, leaning out of the passenger's side window of the truck.

The great Diesel V8 roared, propelling the twelve-ton vehicle out into the great vastness of uncharted rural and semi-rural Michigan. The Moron, who wished he'd brought a champagne bottle to smash on the truck's fender to commemorate this voyage, had to settle for staring in awe at the driver.

"Stop that," the driver said.

"How do you find your way about so easily?" the Moron said, his voice clotted with awe and Barky Bar shrapnel.

"This is just the other end of the parking lot. See? There's your car."

"Swoon!" the Moron said, but didn't. The Company needed him alert and unswooned if he were going to singlehandedly keep the ledgers in the black. "So where's our first stop?"

The driver popped a match alight with his thumbnail. "Oh, you're going to love this," he said, lighting his cigar. "We're going over to another building to pick up even more Commodities."

"Oooooo..." the Moron said, impressed. "Can I have one?"

"A Commodity? I'm afraid not. The Places on our route need those."

"No, one of those," the Moron said, pointing.

"A cigar? Are you sure?"

"No, a match," he said, pointing harder.

"What for?"

"Purposes."

"Good enough for me!" The driver handed one of the wooden strike-anywhere matches to the Moron, who immediately put it in his breast pocket and resumed his vacuous look of awe and indigestion. "We're here. You wanna run round back and lift the door while I go unlock the building and get at the loading dock door?"

"Do I ever!" the Moron hooted, springing from the truck and sprawling on the pavement.

The Moron dampened his bowtie again with the sweat of labor. A little less this time, he thought, because the work was putting him in better shape. He flexed a biceps.

"Yessirreefrank," he said, admiring it. He heaved the last box of Commodities into the truck and pulled the door down.

"Well, this was rather unexpected," he mumbled to himself in the colorless twilight of the back of the truck. "Seems I have misjudged the proper zone of untrappedfulness. Looks like it's on that side of the door."

He scratched his head.

He scratched an armpit.

He admired his biceps again.

"Wonder if it latches from the outside..." He inspected the door's lower edge. "Yes. It seems so. That would make sense, wouldn't it?" he said, nudging a Commodity. "Let's just hope the driver notices I'm missing before he takes off!"