The Pre-Game Show

[allthumbs]

It's pouring rain, and you can't climb today. You're a middle-aged, somewhat out-of-shape, occasional climber, most times cube rat. It's a Sunday afternoon, and you're planning to relax by watching a little football, defined as 11 consecutive hours of football.

 

You settle on the sofa and turn on the pregame show, and the first thing you see is a commercial for a pickup truck. This is followed by another commercial for a pickup truck, and then, for a change of pace, several more commercials for pickup trucks. Then there's about 45 seconds of men talking about football, followed by still more commercials for pickup trucks.

 

At this point, you start to wonder if you're the only guy in America who doesn't drive a pickup truck. You drive a Honda, because in your line of work - engineering - the largest payload you haul is Chinese food.

 

But you are envious of the men in the truck commercials - manly, bulging men, with manly, bulging vehicles; men who handle large tools; men who do not mind getting sweaty and dirty; men like Trask. In the morning, when white-collar Honda drivers like you are applying underarm deodorant, these men are deliberately perspiring and smearing dirt on their bodies, preparing to go work on the rig.

 

That's where the men in truck commercials always work: on a rig. You have never, in your engineering career, been involved with a rig. You're not sure what a 'rig' is. But now you wish you had one. You have rig envy.

 

Of course you could not get to the rig in your Honda, because you have to drive over boulders. That's how your TV-commercial-truck-drivin' guy always gets to his rig: He drives over the largest boulders he can find. If he can't find any boulders, he simulates them by banging his head violently against the roof of his cab. That's how manly he is.

 

And he needs to be manly, for there is trouble at the rig. There is always trouble at the rig, in TV-Truck-Commercial-Land, and it always requires the truck-driving' man to save the day by hitchin' his truck, with a heavy chain, to some massive object - a tree, a building, a tectonic plate, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy - and towin' it up a boulder-strewn mountain. Then, it's quittin' time, as indicated by the sound of Bob Seger shrieking 'Like a rock! Oooooooowww, like a rock!' with the intense, sincere passion of a man who has a rabid snaffle in his undershorts.

 

By the 15th pickup-truck commercial, you are no longer able to focus on the pregame show, because you're feeling deeply insecure about the size of your Honda. You wonder if you could trade it in for a pickup truck. Of course, you'd have to convince your wife that there were practical benefits. ("Look, honey! It has a 1,700-pound payload! I could carry 250 gallons of wonton soup!") But your wife would never see the need for a truck. Your wife is - face it - a woman.

 

And just then, when you're starting to get really depressed, they finally stop showing truck commercials. You heave a sigh of relief, only to realize they are now showing: Viagra commercials. Dozens of them, interspersed with Levitra commercials. They're all basically the same: A man - a rugged man, far more manly than you - openly acknowledges that he had problems with his package. But then he took a pill, and, ZING, he can perform again! He can play professional baseball! He can throw a football through a tire!

 

You try to ignore these commercials. You tell yourself you don't need this product. But then you remember all those nights when, after a long day, you went into the bedroom, and your wife wanted you to - in fact, practically begged you to - throw the football through the tire. But you were 'too tired.'

 

So now, on the sofa, you are a husk of your former self, a man with a tiny shriveled Honda, wondering if you should ask your doctor about Viagra. But that would mean going to the doctor's office, which, in your imagination, has a giant neon sign outside that says VIAGRA DOCTOR, PROVIDING VIAGRA FOR GUYS WHO NEED VIAGRA. Also in your imagination there are pickup-drivin' guys outside the doctor's office, workin' on some kind of rig. As you drive up in your Honda, they give you noogies through your moonroof.

 

This is what you're picturing as you lie on your sofa, curled into the fetal position, when finally, mercifully, the pregame show comes to an end, and the actual game is about to start.

 

Are you ready for some football?

 

[iain]

nice trask

[catbirdseat]

[AlpineK]

[catbirdseat]

If you are thinking, "Wow, that sure sounds like Dave Barry", then you are not alone.

[Dan_Harris]

Yeah, it does sound like Dave Berry's style. But that's ok because Dave Berry is, well, a funny writer and this piece is funny.

[murraysovereign]

I once worked as motorman on a drilling rig around Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. Our rig was used to film - guess what? - a pick-up truck commercial. The whole crew had to leave the rig, 'cause we didn't look enough like rig workers . Instead, they brought in a bunch of guys who looked like, well, like the kind of guys you see in pick-up truck commercials pretending to be rig workers.

[iain]

that's pretty funny. The best ones are when they drop loads of timber into the truck bed from 4 feet instead of laying it in the truck bed.

[murraysovereign]

that's pretty funny. The best ones are when they drop loads of timber into the truck bed from 4 feet instead of laying it in the truck bed.

 

Hah! We did that on my rig. Except we didn't bother pussyin' around with mere lumber. We accidently dropped a double length of drill collars (VERY heavy sections of pipe that are used to put weight on the drill bit) out of the derrick and across the bed of the Tool Push's truck. Folded his truck in half like a wet newspaper

[catbirdseat]

that's pretty funny. The best ones are when they drop loads of timber into the truck bed from 4 feet instead of laying it in the truck bed.

I saw that. That is the stupidest thing I have seen in a truck commercial. When you load a truck, you load it pretty close to capacity. When you drop a load into a truck from four feet, it is like loading the truck with several times the static load limit. I wonder if they used fake timber, or if they went ahead and wrecked the truck they used in the commercial. At the very least, it would have broken some leaves in the springs, blew out the shocks and possibly bent the axle.

[allthumbs]

that's pretty funny. The best ones are when they drop loads of timber into the truck bed from 4 feet instead of laying it in the truck bed.

I saw that. That is the stupidest thing I have seen in a truck commercial. When you load a truck, you load it pretty close to capacity. When you drop a load into a truck from four feet, it is like loading the truck with several times the static load limit. I wonder if they used fake timber, or if they went ahead and wrecked the truck they used in the commercial. At the very least, it would have broken some leaves in the springs, blew out the shocks and possibly bent the axle.

thank you, lee iacocca

[chelle]

Hey Trask...I traded my Honda Civic for a pick up truck. Nice 4WD one with a king cab and a high ceiling canopy equipped for car camping. It's a climber chick's dream. Still feeling inadequate? My truck !

 

Have fun in your 'lil econo car!

[AlpineK]

My pickup is my least macho rig

[chucK]

Hey Trask I never took you for one of those efeminate sissies that reads Dave Barry!

[Mtguide]

Great piece of writing,trask.

 

My guess is that the "timbers" being dropped into the truck bed in these commercials are balsa wood or painted styrofoam props; they also make "steel" pipe out of ABS plastic or cardboard tubes painted silver. Dirt, rocks and boulders are often made of styrofoam or various kinds of rubber or plastic.And many of the spectacularly scenic backgrounds you see in these commercials are partly or entirely digital.And in truth most of the real life oilfield roughnecks,heavy construction workers,ironworkers,etc,that you find on actual work sites are pretty lean and scrawny because they're doing hard work all the time and don't have the time or finances to spend their time at the gym,or getting enough rest to build big muscles.Most of the models they use in these "rig" shots wouldn't last a morning on a real job --believe me,it ain't like the gym,no sir.

 

[chucK]

Great piece of writing,trask.

 

If you thought Trask's writing was funny check this out

[allthumbs]

Jesus christ you detectives are lame. I've said all along that I will occasionally plagiarize some chode's shit. Who fucking cares? Believe me, I don't lose 1 minute of sleep over it. It's funny shit...enjoy it for what it is, and if you don't like my methods, suck my drippy cock 'cause I ain't changin' for no-one, no-way.

[chucK]

attention grubbing drama queen

[allthumbs]

better than being you

[catbirdseat]

Jesus christ you detectives are lame. I've said all along that I will occasionally plagiarize some chode's shit. Who fucking cares? Believe me, I don't lose 1 minute of sleep over it. It's funny shit...enjoy it for what it is, and if you don't like my methods, suck my drippy cock 'cause I ain't changin' for no-one, no-way.

I don't think it detracts one bit from the impact of your post to credit the source. It's no skin off your teeth, and besides it allow other people to go find other funny writings by the same author if they enjoyed the reading.

[allthumbs]

Did you READ my answer to numbnits? What part of it didn't you understand?

[catbirdseat]

Of course I did. You said you didn't care.

[allthumbs]

Then quit busting my balls. If you don't want to read my shit, put me on your ignore list; otherwise shut your fucking pie hole, douchbag.

[chucK]

Maybe you should rephrase that as "If you don't wanna read the shit I post ..." The "my shit" part is obviously disingenuous

[allthumbs]

I'm watchin' you too, asseyes.