I pulled off the interstate yesterday at the exit for US Hwy 27. As I rolled into the median to wait on traffic, an early 80s Chevy half-ton pickup went across in front of me. I made the left and eased in behind him a ways back. We’re both headed south through the rolling farmland of Troup County.

I noticed the driver. Young man, maybe in his 30s. Medium build. Scrappy beard attempting to cover his jaw line. A dark ball cap was pulled down square across his forehead. Left forearm propped in the open driver’s side window.

He glanced my direction as he went by and flexed his left hand up at the wrist. A southern howdy. I raised two fingers off my steering wheel to acknowledge his gesture.

He and I don’t know each other at all, but I know his type. He loves his truck.

I can tell this because there is evidence that he is doing his best to keep his old truck together. His truck is black, but not every piece of it. The driver’s door is blue. The tailgate is white. And there’s duct tape holding the glass in the side mirror.

He could have gotten rid of it, but he hasn’t been willing to do that. A man doesn’t trash his truck just because it needs some work. Maybe a cow bent the driver’s door. I think that because the rest of the body on that side is in good shape. He went down to the junkyard and found a replacement.

Maybe he clipped his tailgate with the bucket on the front end loader. A lot of guys would just live with a tailgate that doesn’t work anymore. Not him. Another trip to the junkyard.

I know his spirit. He’ll drive that truck until it can’t be driven anymore. A truck is an extension of the man. It’s part of his identity. He belongs to his truck, and his truck belongs to him. Not because he owns the title, but because it gets into his soul.

This is why it was hard for me to part with my truck yesterday. It fits me. I’m comfortable in my skin when I’m going down the road in my truck. People who know me recognize me in my truck. If I change trucks, it’s like I’m a stranger in town.

I didn’t get rid of my truck. I just traded trucks with Marion for a few days. Not many men can say to their wives, “Hey honey, can I borrow your truck?”

But she has a bed cover. I needed to haul something that I didn’t want to get wet. I didn’t want to take a chance, so we swapped trucks.

For me, this is an upgrade. For her, it’s a painful downgrade. Let me preach on it.

Her dash looks similar to the cockpit of a Boeing 747. Mine looks more like the knobs on the back of my kitchen stove. Hers has a climate control system with more options than you can shake a stick at. Mine has a heater knob with a defrost button. At times, I will also put my windows down to help clear up the fog on the inside of my windshield.

Her seats are designed by the same engineers who build seats for NASA. They will heat up your buttocks in winter, and they will cool them off in summer. She has options to support and warm up the lower lumbar region. She can raise her seats, tilt her seats, conform her seats, and move her seats on every axis known to man so that she can achieve the perfect position that suits her for driving.

My seats slide forward and back if you reach down between your legs and pull the lever.

She called me last night. “I can’t make your seats work.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your seats don’t fit me. I was trying to figure out how to raise your seat so I can see over the steering wheel.”

“My seats don’t raise.”

“No kidding. I’ve got some old encyclopedias duct taped together that I’ve used as a booster seat for the grandkids at the table. I guess I’m gonna have to use that. My nose is dead level with the top of your steering wheel.”

Speaking of the steering wheel, mine has four buttons on it for the cruise control. That’s it. Hers looks more like the console on a video game controller.

“OMG,” she says to me. “I reached for the volume buttons underneath my right hand to turn the music up a little bit, and you don’t have buttons. I had to reach all the way over to the middle of the dash to turn the music up.”

Poor soul.

Her steering wheel has buttons that operate the main menu on the dash. With the touch of a button, you can access all fourteen cameras that are operated by satellite beams from outer space. Buttons for OnStar. Buttons for mountain climbing. Buttons for tailgate lights.

I haven’t actually counted, but there has to be somewhere close to 847 lights on her truck. Interior lights. Lights on the underside of the side mirrors so you can see the ground in the dark when you step out of the truck. Marker lights above the wheel wells. Beauty lights on the mirrors on the back of BOTH visors.

I feel bad about the trade. I really do. I felt so bad that I took my truck through the car wash as a gesture of compensation for what I knew she was about to experience. I vacuumed the inside. I spent some extra time on cleaning the windshield and the dash. I cleared all my junk out of the floorboard. I turned it over to her as best I could.

I know I drive the WT model. It’s a work truck. It does have electric windows, and all the doors match the same color as the tailgate. There’s a menu on the dash, but I have to reach through the steering wheel, or around it, to turn the little stem that pokes out through the plastic cover just below the speedometer. I turn that and I can see my tire pressure, percentages on things like the fuel filter, and how many miles I’ve got left in the tank.

The WT does everything a real truck is supposed to do. It’s not as pretty as hers, but I don’t reckon I’ve ever called a truck “pretty” before. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, but it’ll get her down the road wherever she needs to go. The heat is good. The defrost will blow the stickers off the window. There’s plenty of room for whatever she might need to carry.

I feel a little odd driving her truck. I’ve driven it plenty whenever we’ve traveled together. But I don’t think I’ve ever driven it without her in it.

We don’t travel in the WT. If we’re headed out on a trip, for fun I’ll ask her…

“Which truck you wanna take?”

“Mine, of course.”

But for the next few days, she’s got the WT.

And I’m traveling in style.