I’m out of school now. I’ve run out of it. I had a full jar of school and now it’s all empty. I need a next step. I’ve never had any delusions of immediately getting the job I’ll have for the rest of my life right after I finished college. That being said, the need for a next step isn’t going anywhere, and as long as I don’t have one, I’m not either.

So I suppose I’ve gotta find something. There are millions of careers out there, and maybe, just maybe, one of ’em’s got room for ol’ Joe Bush. I figure that I should start simple, with the thing I considered for like a solid two days in the third grade: Driving Monster Trucks

How tough could this be?

My third grade monster truck interest phase was possibly my shortest phase of youthful interest. As a young kid who probably should’ve been put on Ritalin, I had phases of interest in, like, Dinosaurs, the Tennessee Titans, the Final Fantasy games, and Cryptozoology each for about a week and a half. I checked out one monster jam book from my elementary school’s library and it opened my eyes to a world of new ideas and facts. For instance:

• Did you know that the wheels on monster trucks are big and expensive?
• Did you know that the tires are also expensive?
• Did you know that Grave Digger, the world champion of Monster Trucks, has working side-doors? Most other trucks just have doors on the bottom that drivers climb up through.

I can’t really tell from this image, to be honest

But how do I break into the Monster Truck game?

At first, I figured that there couldn’t possibly be that many monster trucks currently in the world. And then I looked up the Wikipedia article “List of monster trucks” and, boy, was I wrong. Holy shit. That’s a lot of trucks. That is like one hundred more trucks than I guessed there would ever be in the current monster truck ecosystem. Maybe you’re saying “This must be a fake list”? Well, check out that list of references:

If twister Terry morgan says it’s real, then it’s gotta be legit.

Anyway, that’s a long-ass list, but I think I can get my way on. The prerequisites to becoming a monster truck driver seem to be this:

• Own a truck
• Put big tires and wheels on said truck

So that’s about it. The truck, I can get from eBay motors or the car store down the street. I went on Amazon and searched for huge tires and couldn’t find any, but I found one independent dealer.

$4101.92 times four wheels is like $16,000, I could probably talk the tire guy down to a clean $15,000. The axles and wheels would have to be custom made, but I’m sure there’s a WikiHow article on it or something.

How do I become a monster truck champion?

What’s the point of buying a huge truck if I can’t become a champion. The book I read when I was eight called Grave Digger the world champion, but I don’t know what the governing body of monster trucks is like and who hands out the titles. The Grave Digger may have awarded the championship to himself, and we’d be none the wiser.

There only seems to be one monster truck league, and it’s called “Monster Jam.” I don’t know what the monster truck minor leagues are like, at least I haven’t done research on Lawrence’s monster truck scene. Monster Jam comes to almost my town next month, and I could potentially do some scouting there. I’m not about to, though. Tickets start at fifteen dollars and I don’t fucking have fifteen dollars are you kidding me?

Besides, I think I get the idea. The whole sport of monster truck driving seems to be based upon one criterion: Smashin’ Stuff

I love smashin’ stuff as much as the next guy, but I’m not sure what the grading system is outside of that. Is it “most cars smashed in the allotted time span”? That can’t be it. How do they get the cars in and out of there between heats? Those cars don’t have wheels. They can’t send ’em in and out on their own power, and I assume that they can’t move once the engine’s been smashed anyway. Plus, can you imagine buying that many cars? I assume, seeing as Monster Jam’s in the Sprint Center, they must be doing at least as well as Bruce Springsteen or the NCAA Volleyball Championship is, but even the Boss can’t afford that many cars. Some trucks would have to be starting with pre-crushed cars, it’s just basic semantics and economics. There’s no finite way to judge who’s really the champion of monster truckery.

At this point, I’m convinced that anyone can claim a monster truck championship. I’m convinced that I can claim a monster truck championship. In fact…

I’m the truck champ baby! And I didn’t have to spend any money, or own a truck, or crush a car, or buy a ticket to the truck competition. Clearly this can’t be my next step, because I’ve already completed it, but I’m proud of myself anyway. I haven’t been a champion since my Halo 3 days, but I’m glad to be Truck Champ now.