Pigpen, this here is Rubber Duck

[tyellas]

Yhe day that I took off from work to have my car serviced in downtown Wellington turned out to be the day of a massive truck protest in Auckland and Wellington. Major highways and downtown were expected to be choked with big rigs. I decided that, instead of rescheduling my day, I would get up super early and beat the convoy.

Well, triumph is mine, in the form of being downtown at the Honda shop at 7:14 A.M., on a cold, dark winter morning, long before anything is open except McDonald's. I had a hot chocolate at Mickey D's, and now...the adrenaline is gone and I'm too grumpy to even hum "Convoy" under my breath.

Comments

[aayesha-r.livejournal.com]

"...which many truckies say..."

Is this the preferred usage? I imagine fierce arguments between truckies and truckers, a la Trekkies and Trekkers.

[tyellas.livejournal.com]

I present this in parallel with other Antipodean slang terms:

Truckie = Truck driver
Sparky = Electrician
Chippie = I think this means a carpenter

It's the easy-peasy-choccie-bikkie-it's-a-doddle verbal infantilization thing.

Then again, as an American, I can't talk. Senior executives where I work now send me emails in textspeak on a regular basis.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

So - were the roads all clogged up with 18-wheelers as expected, or was your virtuous start to the day all for nothing?

[tyellas.livejournal.com]

Yes, but they stayed neatly in one lane. I watched them from a bridge for a while, listening to them honk, surrounded by men snapping away with cellphone cameras. If I had been a 6-year-old boy, I would have thought it was the greatest thing ever. And it did have a curiously carnivalesque air.