"Big" trucks at a city library and other lies parents tell their kids

"Come out for Truck Day," my friend, Sarah, urged over the phone. I sighed, looking out my window as no fewer than five different varieties of trucks drove by. A milk truck pulled in at the farm down the road and I rose to close the living-room window as I spotted the manure spreader headed my way. A skid-loader buzzed by like a little bee as I agreed to travel to a city library parking lot to see "big" trucks with Sarah and her kids. "You know," I told her, "all they're going to have is a fire truck, a school bus, a garbage truck and a tractor that I could fit in my pocket. Come to the country where the real trucks live. Plus...my neighbor just got a llama."

But Sarah was enthusiastically insistent so I headed to the city to see some "big" trucks. I idled patiently, at one point, stuck behind a two-lane blocking harvester that costs double the value of my house, and considered maybe I could be wrong. Not likely...but certainly possible. They do construction in the city so maybe there would be some awesome dump trucks, excavators, or maybe even a bulldozer (the triceratops of the construction truck world). I paused to let a frontloader back out onto a logging road (where logging trucks were waiting to be filled).

An hour later, I pulled (my truck) into Sarah's driveway, surprised to see three-year-old Will jumping up and down in front of his living-room window, excited to see me. This was a new development. In Will's world, I am the annoying person who arrives once-a-month and distracts his mother from her parental duties. "Why," Will will wonder, frowning, "does this tall, gawky lady get gourmet grilled cheese while I am stuck with my usual hum-drum peanut butter sandwich?" On the plus side, Sarah will usually relent and let the poor little guy watch two episodes of Daniel Tiger during my visits instead of his pre-requisite one episode per day. Sarah's bridal shower gift was a big screen TV group gift because we realized that her husband and future children would live a nomadically-barren existence, forced to flee to other homes to fulfill their television needs and escape the shadow-puppet entertainment that Sarah would use to supplement quality network programming.

"Amy...we see big trucks," Will shouted as I walked in. I sighed. I just couldn't do it to him. Let him have this day...and the next...before he discovers the truth. Let his friends in school be the first to expose the lie. No, William...there are NO big trucks at your city library. Every parent has to make that choice and if Sarah wants to indulge her kids in the fallacy that a school bus is a big truck...well, it is not my place to interfere. Sure...she'll have to deal with deep-rooted feelings of misplaced trust and betrayal later but for today, Will is happy thinking a school bus is a "big" truck.

"Amy has a big truck," Will shouted and I glanced out at my parked Titan. Could this be a matter of perspective? Had I somehow become jaded and apathetic? And as Will danced happily about the room, excited to go to his city library to see "big" trucks, my grizzled heart began to soften. As the story goes: And in Will's house they say, that Amy's small heart grew three sizes that day.

So we went to the city library. Saw the school bus, the firetruck, and the garbage truck. Will got stung by a bee. We went home. Watched two episodes of Daniel Tiger. Sarah made me a lunch of tuna salad with slivered almonds and grapes mixed in and poor Will had to eat his hum-drum peanut butter sandwich. That kid is never going to like me.

Savannah demonstrating what
real "big" trucks look like.