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**XCashier** · 05-02-2007, 02:59 AM

Quoth friendofjimmyk View Post

So, I've been towing cars for a minute now and have run into all sorts of reactions.

A minute?! Dang, you're quick!

Seriously, though, yes folks, women can drive trucks. Tow trucks even. It's not as if the driver has to pick up the vehicle with her bare hands and place it on the tow truck (as if a man could do that!).

**Melxb** · 05-02-2007, 03:07 AM

Quoth friendofjimmyk View Post

I have been asked on more than one occasion by older gentlemen, "wow, they put women in trucks now?" Yes...we do all sorts of things now.

Oh I gotcha there. I work in a predominately male field as well. When I meet people and tell them what I do, I always get, "Wow? Women can do that?" Um, yeah. We have for a loooooong time. Sorry you didn't get the memo a generation earlier.

**Plaidman** · 05-02-2007, 03:48 AM

Wow. I was expecting that titled to be followed by nobody loves me... she's just a poor girl nobody loves her... etc.

But wow. That crap still going around? I'm still surprise to hear that. Most woman I've met tend to be, you know, smarter and superior in most ways in most jobs.

**RecoveringKinkoid** · 05-02-2007, 01:48 PM

Well, you know, I've been around quite a few tow truck drivers in my Kinko's days, and not a single one of them used any other body parts other than their hands to hook up the cars and drive the truck.

Last time I checked, women in general have hands, too.

What, do these idiots think the men haul the cars off with sheer muscle? What kills me is that our tow guy often had a teenage boy working with him who was only slightly larger than I am. I bet nobody asked HIM if "he was sure he could handle the job."

That's so irritating.

**Rapscallion** · 05-02-2007, 08:03 PM

Quoth RecoveringKinkoid View Post

Well, you know, I've been around quite a few tow truck drivers in my Kinko's days, and not a single one of them used any other body parts other than their hands to hook up the cars and drive the truck.

Well, apart from in their minds...

Rapscallion

**friendofjimmyk** · 05-02-2007, 09:58 PM

Oh, my most favorite reactions come from kids...especially the really little ones. They don't care that I am a woman driver, they are just amazed PERIOD by the truck. I get to be a superstar when it comes to kids.

The other day I had this incident...

LG: Little girl
Me: well...

I lower the bed and hooked the car up while I had a little audience (two little girls under the age 5)

LG: How you gonna git dat on da truck?

Me: Well, I'm going to pull it up there with the cable.

LG: Yeah, but how you gonna git dat on da truck?

Me: It's easy. Once I get the cable moving it pulls it up on to the bed.

LG: I know! But how you gonna git it up dere?

Me: You'll see.

LG: I know! But how????!?!?!?!

Then her little sister, with the cutest little blond ringlet curls, followed me around back and forth and tried to help. It was cute.

**skeptic53** · 05-02-2007, 11:21 PM

Old Reader's Digest story from the late 1940"s:

Trolley car is blocked by a large truck parked on the tracks. Young woman dressed in pink dress, wearing a hat, high heels, long nails stands up and says "The nerve of some people! Leaving a truck like that!" She hops off the trolley, climbs into the truck, fires it up and starts jockeying it back and forth until the tracks are clear. She gets back on the trolley to cheers from the other commuters, pats her hair and says "Well, that's one thing I learned in the Navy".

**bigjimaz** · 05-03-2007, 01:32 AM

Hell, if a woman can give birth to a 10 pound baby they can do anything. Just imagine if it were us men who gave birth. There would be no human life. Don't let the sexist stuff get to you. Do your job to the best of your ability.

If anyone thinks driving a tow truck is easy, it is. It's when you park the truck that it gets hard. Changing tires just so you can tow a car, setting up the dolly wheels or disconnecting drive shafts are not that easy to do. Dealing with the weather and people who's "Baby" just got crushed, drunks and irate family members aren't any fun either.

**MCSledgehammer** · 05-03-2007, 01:55 AM

Excerpt from a conversation wherein I was bitching to my erstwhile DH that so many people think women can't drive stick shifts:
Me: Since when does having external genitalia dictate your driving?
Him: Well, how else do you push in the clutch?
(He was, of course, kidding, but I thought it was hilarious.)
Seriously, though, I get that all the time at the hardware store. "I need some help from the helpful hardware man! Not sure if the helpful hardware girls are gonna be too helpful though..." (Direct quote!) My lovely coworkers, upon hearing this, all suddenly became very, very stupid and directed all questions to me. It was truly heartwarming.

**RecoveringKinkoid** · 05-03-2007, 02:45 AM

If you are the writer of that Haiku, you are my current hero.

Just sayin'.

**zzapp the witch** · 05-03-2007, 05:33 AM

When I bought my house, it was a fixer/upper, or more like a gutter/rebuilder. *I* tore all the shit off the walls down to the studs. *I* ripped out all of the cloth and tar covered wiring that was mouse eaten and rotten. *I* was the one that removed all of the pepto-bismol pink and teal 1940s tiles and five layers of linoleum off of the floor. *I* was the one that ripped out the kitchen.

For some reason, this is impressive to people. I don't see why, taking stuff apart is easy, putting it back together....not so much.

I went to Lowe's with my list, I had got my permit, drawn my circuits, estimated how much wiring I would need, got boxes, plugs and switches, new breaker box and breakers....etc. Cashier asks me if I got everything on my list. Sure did. Good, cause she wouldn't want my bf to get mad if I didn't (she was saying jokingly).

Oh, but I'm doing all this myself. This is *my* list that I calculated and made. Oh my gosh! But you're a girl!

I swear every front end cashier that was female and not busy came over to ogle at me like I was some kind of oddity.

How did I learn this? Well, hell, women, you sell the damn book I'm using for reference and double checking myself!

But they could never do it, cause they're just girls.....

If they're impressed by that I have some tile work, flooring, painting, plumbing, windowframing and setting, weedwhacking, pruning, and woodsplitting to show them.

Oh yeah, the little old ladies freaking when they saw me splitting my own rounds in the backyard for the woodstove....

(I hired out for the roof and sheetrock though). (Oh and the kitchen, which is GORGEOUS! Solid oak at half the price of the crap they try to sell you through a catalog, counter included. I love local carpenters!)

**draftermatt** · 05-03-2007, 11:03 AM

I don't get why people think women can't do things. I've worked with female architects, engineers, and builders (contractors) before. There are good and bad ones, same as the males in this business.

My wife helps with all the projects in the house. She's a better painter than I am (i'm just taller so I get the upwards parts), and she dictates what goes where. She can and will do anything to help out, and that's a big reason why I love her.

**Banrion** · 05-03-2007, 11:54 AM

I am capable of doing alot of home renovation, and car maintenence, but I don't LIKE doing it. Thank DYOC that the fiance is a contractor, and the brother is a mechanic. I'll help them out, but not really my cup of tea.

**RecoveringKinkoid** · 05-03-2007, 01:00 PM

Zzapp, when men do that I just sort of roll my eyes and think about what wimps and pushovers their wives and mothers must be to instill that sort of attitude in them. When women do it, it really pisses me off.

These cashiers must be beyond useless.

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