"Hello. Welcome to Swiney's. Would you like to try a number one combo?" asked the speaker grille.
"It's four in the morning!" tweeted the Moron with not undue pride. He prepared a pre-emptive chest-swelling and waited for the speaker grille's response.
"Hello?" said the speaker.
"Heh." The Moron pressed his shiny red sports car's window button. The window hummed down in a smooth ballet of glass and electric motory. He tried again.
"Hello? Do you need a minute?"
The Moron pressed a different window button and the driver's side window went down. He'd figure out how to roll that other one up later.
"Would you like to try a Bacon Bum Burger? The Number One combo comes with sarsaparilla swine sauce and a side of hogpuppies. Sir?
The Moron swelled his chest, but not too much, lest he blow his own horn. "It's four in the morning! Well, four-o-two now."
"Tell me about it," said the speaker. "Ain't right bein up this early, huh? Can I take your order?"
"Yeah. Gonna ride me in a truck today," the Moron continued, resting his forearm on the window sill. "Yessirreefrank, someone's gotta move them Commodities. Driver put the break all up on one'a his legs, and now it's up to me to hop up in the big rig and let them blues roll on by."
"Huh?"
The Moron continued. "Yup. Time to put the hammer down and grumble around on them lonesome highways. Mama's at home with the biscuits, an' gravy up'n shit the barn. A man's gotta do what he told the boss he would." A Diesel-scented John Deere baseball cap suddenly appeared on his head.
"Hey! You're that dude who always shows up around 5:30 in the evening and talks about spreadsheets! Loretta told me about you!" the speaker crackled excitedly. "You're, like, famous around here, dude!"
The Moron hid his pride under his hat, as it weren't proper for a trucker man to go waving it around.
"In order to sustain mahsewf out on the route today, I'll have a pulled-swine barbecue sandwich, a triple Swiney and a side order of piglet puffs. Oh, and some hogpuppies. I'll try those. Do they come with maple syrup?"
"They come with...a kind of syrup. That'll be nine dollars and sixteen cents. Please pull around to the second window!" said the speaker.
The Moron did. He snatched his bag of sustenance and peppered a Chevrolet Cavalier in the adjacent parking lot with wistful glances on his way out of the drive-thru.
It wasn't even light outside yet. The Moron never stopped thinking that this was very weird until he got to The Company and had to be once again the stalwart professional they needed him to be. He retrieved a box of "energy-packed" Barky Bars from his trunk.
"Gotta keep up my protein today!" he told the parking lot's parallel yellow parking lines. "And these are fortified with the rich fullness of birch and alder!" He briefly flourished the box like a game show host and scampered into the building.
The impact knocked him over on his back. He gathered up the scattered Barky Bars and brushed himself off. Using the key the Company had so graciously given him, he unlocked the door and entered.
"Mornin', Moron!" said the injured truck driver. "You ready to roll?"
"Am I ever!" he hooted. "Want a Barky Bar?"
"No."
"Which truck is ours?"
The driver, using a crutch, hoisted himself laboriously to his feet. "Come round back. I got it backed up to the loading dock and I'll tell you how we load it."
The Moron scoffed.
"Gesundheit," said the driver.
The Moron scoffed again, this time under his breath. He would let the man have his fun, but honestly; a professional of his caliber would know instinctually how to load a truck. If he could handle Microsoft Excel, he could handle a truck with some bags of Commodities. He followed the limping driver out into the loading bay.
"Here's what we gotta get loaded up!" he said cheerfully indicating a stack of Commodities the size of a school bus. "And we got ten minutes before the other drivers show up."
