What's the matter with truckers?

Well, finally! Three weeks to the day after my misadventure in moving culminated in my car imploding in Tennessee, I went back to good ole' Nashville to fetch it and now I'm finally all moved into Texas.

On this, my second trip back for the 1,000 miles between Nashville and San Antonio, something jogged my memory - I meant to write about this before but I guess the whole car thing kind of took it out of my head. And my question is: What is it about America's truckers that necessitates the incredible number of roadside adult video stores?

Ironically, the 'Bible Belt' is littered with these things - at one place, I think in Arkansas, there is literally one on either side of an exit - making it sooo much easier for truckers to pull into going west or east.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that truckers are the only people at these place (and, for the record, no, I did't) but these places ADVERTISE to truckers - they make truckers their target market -- there has to be a reason for that. Before you send hate mail, I have friends and relatives who are/have been truckers, so I know this is a huge generalization, but still, they don't advertise to "Hey, driving home late from work, stop here and ... well, you know..." No, they say, "truckers welcome" and stuff like that.

In all, I'd say these places probably rank in the top 5 of most often visible 'establishments' on the trail. You have your fast-food, gasoline, Wal-Mart and the like; and then probably these places. Between, I forget, probably Pennsylvania or Ohio and Tennessee there is actually a chain - same store name throughout three or four different states. Maybe top 5 is a bit of an exaggeration, but you certainly notice them more than most other places.

I guess there is probably no point to this other than I found the juxtaposition of an advertisement for one of these places amusing as it was located within a couple hundred yards of a Christian advertising billboard asking me where I was going to go if I died today. (There's a whole raft of wise-ass answers for that in this context, mostly involving heart attacks and a really embarassing obituary...)

So, I guess, whenever I go into a Wal-Mart or something from now on and ask for an item, and they say, 'the truck will be here tomorrow,' at least I have a pretty good idea of where they might be now.