I’ve been getting tons of spam here in the last few weeks with offers to help me increase certain parts of my anatomy. It seems like every time I clean a bunch of spam out, I find more that have gotten through. I don’t need any of these things, because I’ve got something that’s relatively cheaper and more useful, and which leaves me feeling like, well, more of a man: a borrowed F350 SuperDuty pickup.

It’s wider and longer than the average pickup, which makes navigating our neighborhood something of a challenge. The sadists who relined our local grocery store parking lot designed it for cars the size of mopeds, which makes docking the Ford there an impossibility, and any trips to the store a carefully considered operation. It takes one and a half parking spots, no more, no less. Getting it parked properly is something that instills a sense of pride, though, because the turning circle is measured in miles, not feet. It seems to carve its own way through traffic with ease. Fear of an oncoming red wall of doom will make even the most aggro of highway warriors back off and make room for merging; I’ve tried not to abuse the privilege, honest. However, this did not dissuade the blind, deaf, and soon-to-be-dead-by-his-own-hand guy in the Honda this morning, who decided to merge right into my lane at 65mph, slow down to 25mph, then merge blindly right two more lanes onto the offramp, with feet to spare. (Dave, your brakes are working perfectly, but my heart is five years older).

Getting in and out is also something that takes a certain amount of physical grace: one does not sit down, one hauls oneself up into the cab and throws one’s ass towards the seat. The interior is cavernous, like sitting in two large La-Z-Boys levitating ten feet over the ground. It’s a new experience leaning down to hand the toll collector my money. The controls are big and beefy, meant to stand up to gorilla lawncare professionals and furniture deliverymen.

And the hauling capacity? Jeebus, I could rave about this thing for hours. I’ve moved a total of a ton and a half of debris from the house (figuring 1/3 ton for each load) where drywall was stacked to the gunwales, and the truck shrugged off the weight. Lining up at the dump next to the little Rangers and Nissans is comedic; I could fit their entire vehicles in the bed of the Ford.