Passing Like Ships…

My father-in-law, Bud Morrison, used to tell me a story of two vendors that passed each other going in opposite directions, every day along the same stretch of highway as they serviced several stores and restocked their products. One was a bread truck, delivering fresh bakery goods and the other was a dairy truck, delivering milk, cream, and cottage cheese.

 

The man in the bakery truck chewed tobacco. He developed the habit of spitting the juice from his quid of tobacco onto the milk truck as they passed going in opposite directions. By the time the dairy truck reached the next grocery store, much of the spittle had dried and was difficult to remove. This quickly got under the skin of the dairy driver. It was so offensive.

He made the decision to hurry through his deliveries to meet the driver of the bread truck while he was still unloading his wares. He caught the bakery driver and told him, “That is disgusting and I want you to quit spitting on my truck. I’m warning you,” then unloaded the dairy products, ignoring the bakery truck driver.

The next morning, the dairy driver found out that nothing had changed. When the two trucks passed, the baked goods driver spit a stream of brown spittle from the open window of his vehicle and onto the windscreen of the milk truck. He was furious. He had already tried to talk with the other truck jockey and hadn’t resolved anything.

He made a plan for the following day. Removing one of his products from his inventory, he placed it at his side. Everything was ready. The dairy driver picked up the cardboard container of chocolate mile. It was a full quart, not one of the smaller containers like kids could get in school.

As they passed, the dairyman tossed the quart out his side window and onto the windshield of the bakery truck.

The driver of the milk truck told Bud, “When I looked back in my side view mirror, all that I saw were brake lights and a bakery truck swerving side to side as it slid to a stop. The great thing was that he stopped spitting on my truck.”

This is one of the stories that Bud enjoyed telling to us.