Busting Stereotypes (Florida Boating, Post 34)

Tuesday, February 23

We slept on Monday night at a rest stop, specifically, the Texas Travel Information Center, i.e. the welcome center when you first cross into Texas from Louisiana. We’ve been driving through rough, rural areas for two days now. The pickups are large, the barns collapsing in the onslaught of hurricanes these past few years, the port areas heavy with industry. The restaurants do not include organic, gluten-free options. Mask wearing has been sporadic at best. You’d think there was no pandemic down here!

As we opened our curtains at the truck stop and took down our window coverings preparing to get back on the road, I saw a trucker walk by our van on the way back to his semi. He wore the most amazing mask I’d ever seen. It was black, or perhaps a deep, dark blue, and it was covered with sparkles! Sequins and glitter glistened and sparkled in the morning light.

At first I thought perhaps it was just wet – a few spilled coffee drops perhaps? But no, the entire surface of the mask sparkled with brilliance. Glittering with multi-colored beads, sequins and glitter, it sparkled like every little girl’s dream mask, except trucker-sized. And he was a big trucker, lumbering back to his semi truck with the red cab.

I will never know the story of the large, tough-looking trucker in the glitter mask, but I loved it. It made me happy for the rest of the drive that day. Now I want a glitter mask too! But it would not be the same. I would just be a dorky old lady in a glitter mask. The trucker was brilliant!

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