Down the Road

   You never realize how many roads are in America until you've driven almost all of them.

   In eight years, I've driven every major highway across the US; South Carolina to California and Montana to Texas, and everywhere in between. I've seen the Grand Canyon, watched the sun rise on the coast of Florida and set on the coast of San Diego. I've slept under the stars in desert in New Mexico, climbed rock walls in the Dakotas, and paddled through the bayous of Louisiana. I drive all day and night, have no permanent home, and spend the majority of life alone, but I only have one complaint.

   Paying for gas is a bitch.

   Given that I have no "real" job, and the work I do does not pay well by any means, I'm lucky to have a good poker face. I probably should feel bad about cheating at card games in bars, mooching food and drinks off strangers, and talking my way out of most expenses I might incur along the way. But hey, I gotta eat somehow, and my '69 Pontiac is a gas guzzler. I call it fair trade for the many public services I've performed over the last decade.

   For example, the business man in Connecticut who would have never been able to set foot in the sunlight again if not for my interference. He may not get a good night's sleep for the next twenty years or so, but he's alive. There was a little girl in Virginia who would have been slaughtered along with several other children if my closest friend (a Beretta that never leaves my side) and I hadn't stepped in. Finally, the family in Kansas who was forced to believe that things really do go bump in the night actually expressed their undying gratitude to me for saving them from the horrors that haunted their house. They didn't even make me pay for the window I shattered while breaking in.

   I might break the law some (most) days. I may carry more concealed weapons than most twenty-six year old women have ever seen. I drive my car too fast, play my music too loud, and care too little about my own safety. My name doesn't matter, and chances are whatever your worst nightmare is, I've killed it. You're welcome.