Michael Patrick F. Smith

“Shit load is actually kind of a technical term. A shit load is a load made up of random stuff, a bunch of different shit. Drivers complain about getting shit loads because they are more complicated to tie down. More important, because the weight of a shit load is harder to distribute, they are dangerous to transport. When a trailer is weighted unevenly, things can get squirrelly. As a new swamper, I learn to hate loading and off-loading the shit loads because the rigging is complicated. Unloading a regular load, a large square box, for instance, it is pretty easy in a glance to know how to get it off a trailer. But a shit load is like a difficult math problem if it were greasy with invert, dust, dirt, and diesel and worn by time and weather. And if it were heavy enough to kill you.”
― Michael Patrick F. Smith, The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown

“The old man is lecturing me on rigging, his maw a senseless, wet noisemaker. He yammers on and on, a blathering display of trucker-mouth diarrhea.”
― Michael Patrick F. Smith, The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown