Mom thought otherwise, suggesting instead a Steinway grand piano. After a long and heated debate, they compromised by purchasing a baby grand, with a gun rack mounted on the side.

Sadly, the visceral thrill of truck driving is being threatened by the Banana Republic Syndrome: the more rugged a product is, the wimpier its buyers will be.

Pickup trucks are for picking things up. So why are suburbanites who pay someone to pick up their trash buying trucks like mad? Most of the current truck buyers could just as easily fulfill their hauling needs by getting a golf-cart with tire chains.

Instead, they buy the next best thing: a dinky little truck with bucket seats, tape deck, a king cab, short bed, and air conditioning. Then they take it to the grocery store, buy chardonnay and brie, and wax it a lot.

Let us be blunt: a real truck has a functional bed, not a King-Cab in the backseat or a "Camper's Cap" over the bed. A real truck has a bench seat, not buckets. A real truck does not have a CD player, nor vanity plates, because Real Truck drivers don't care what anyone thinks of them. A real truck is high off the ground (can you imagine Clint in a low-rider?), but not so high you have to pole-vault to enter it. A real truck is not called "Big Foot."

One does not go drive-through banking in a real truck, nor to a cocktail party. You never worry about scratching or dinging a real truck (it's no pretty boy), and a real truck, of course, doesn't eat unleaded gas.

You can tell you're in a real truck because you inexplicably start saying things like "Gotta pick up some six-penny ardox nails" and "Just throw 'er in the back," even if the cargo in question is your mother-in-law.

But, above all else, a real truck doesn't dump you for your best friend, like I just know Kim Basinger would.

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