Big Mac Daddy, Trucker Micro-Biologist

       I dreamed I was at a special promotion ceremony. I was one of 50 graduates of the "Dootson School of Trucking" and had earned myself one of 50 Tractors with the sleep-over cabin. N and I were planning on retiring early to a new career. Apparently we were short of truck drivers and this was a way of getting more on the road. I was explaining that all I needed to do was drive four days a week and I would be replacing my current salary and benefits. While I didn't own the trailer, I was on a long term contract to drive for a microbiology company. I had the back of my truck, one of fifty on the deck of an aircraft carrier, open to give tours of the special 'cleanroom on wheels' trailer that I was going to be hauling from city to city delivering biological precursors and hauling back product for packaging in California. (In my home city, even.) The whole reason I got the contract was that I was the only driver who'd impressed the company that I actually knew what they were doing, and could understand the monitoring software that was used on the trailer with almost no training. They also liked that I was a computer tech and would be able to help people over the phone from the road. (The route only involved driving six hours a day, leaving me some time to do phone support. In a way I was actually doing two jobs for the company.)
       At one point I was standing on the back of an empty trailer telling N that we could own one of our own in just six short years, and we could fix it up like a motor home, sort of the ultimate tow-behind.
       As I watched our promotion ceremony, we had a big screen video production playing overhead, at one point there was a live aerial view of the aircraft carrier and our five wide by ten long grid of trucks. There was us on the fan tail stage and a few hundred of our family and friends on the deck between us and our trucks. The ship was steaming into port, San Diego, and the intent was to drive the trucks down onto the island, across the base and then back in formation across the Cabrillio bridge for more photo opportunities. The sunlight glinted into the camera from the solar cells of fifty trailer roofs. (Although the tractors were all Bio-Diesel Electric Hybrids, the solar cells were really to charge the batteries for the onboard GPS, computer and cell phone systems, not much else.)
       Until we had enough to pay off the trailer I wanted, N was going to stay home and take care of the cats on the days I was driving. (I would pretty much only be home on weekends.) Once the school was paid off, I intended to work out the contract then sell the house and retire to the road after customizing our trailer. I figured I would have enough for the trailer and twenty years of food and fuel. I had all ready purchased some retirement property that had full electric and sewer hookups, as well as a paved drive circle to get the rig in and out of the place.
       The promotion ceremony had gotten to the point where they were calling our states and names, so my attention snapped back to the stage and the crowd. California is early and I stepped across the stage to take my diploma, license, and to shake the hand of the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Commerce as well as the Vice President of the United States. I think I was the oldest one in the promotion ceremony.