RDK Truck Sales
Gary The Garbage Man

Linda II Pulls a Double Shift

Author

Richard Kemner

Date Published

A line of RDK mechanics and dispatchers, mugs in hand, waiting inside the break room at 4:31 AM as Gary works the chrome espresso machine named Linda II under a warm overhead light

Linda II Pulls a Double Shift

Special 12 — National Coffee Day, September 29

A line of RDK mechanics and dispatchers, mugs in hand, waiting inside the break room at 4:31 AM as Gary works the chrome espresso machine named Linda II under a warm overhead light
4:31 AM. SHE HAD NEVER SEEN A LINE LIKE THIS.

National Coffee Day was still five days out, and Linda II — the break room's chrome twin-group espresso machine, rescued off a Bayshore curb, named after Gary's wife under circumstances the whole yard has agreed never to fully explain again — did not know what hit her.

Gary had decided, unilaterally and with great enthusiasm, that the celebration should start early and last the whole week. "Rehearsal," he called it. "You don't want opening night to be the first time she's ever pulled a real crowd."

By 4:31 AM Monday, there was a line. An actual line, out the break room door, mechanics and dispatchers and one very confused new hire holding a thermos he did not know he needed to bring.

Gary, Barista

Gary in an apron printed with the RDK swoosh, holding up his forearm covered in handwritten coffee orders while an amused older coworker holds a paper cup at the espresso machine
HE WROTE THE ORDERS ON HIS ARM. HE COULD NOT FIND A PEN.

Gary appointed himself barista for the week. Nobody appointed him. He simply arrived Monday in an apron that said "RDK" in the same white swoosh as the trucks, procured from absolutely nowhere anyone can trace, and started taking orders like the yard had become a competing coffee chain.

He wrote them on his forearm in pen because the order pad "felt like overkill for twelve people."

Ralph ordered black, same as always, and got a small paper cup with "RALPH — BLACK — DO NOT MESS THIS UP" written on it in Gary's handwriting, which was, in fact, correct, in an upset of expectations nobody saw coming.

Gary handing a steaming paper cup marked for Ralph across the break room counter as Ralph gives an approving nod, with two more crew members waiting behind him
RALPH'S ORDER NEVER CHANGES. NEITHER DOES THE NOD.

Russ ordered something with four words in it that Gary had never heard of and made twice, out of spite, until it came out right.

"Fifteen years on gas station coffee and now I'm out here steaming milk. Linda II, sweetheart, look what you turned me into." — Gary

The Real Linda Weighs In

Linda sipping a small white cup of espresso at the break room pass-through window with her eyes closed, while a row of bearded yard employees quietly watch and Gary looks on hopefully
SHE TASTED IT. SHE APPROVED IT. SHE SAID NOTHING ELSE.

Word travels fast in this family, and by Wednesday, the real Linda showed up at the yard unannounced, took one look at the line, one look at the apron, and ordered a cortado without explaining what that was to anyone.

Gary made it. He had, it turned out, been practicing.

Linda took one sip, standing at the pass-through window while eleven yard employees pretended very hard not to watch, and gave a single nod — the same nod she's given exactly twice before in the recorded history of their marriage, both times over cooking.

"It's good," she said. "Don't let it go to your head."

"Too late," Gary said. "Everything about that machine already went to my head. That's the whole story."

Opening Night, Extended All Week

Close-up of the chrome espresso machine Linda II pulling two shots in green cups with steam rising, while a smiling RDK employee steams milk beside encouraging notes pinned to the break room board
IF THERE IS ONE THING SHE UNDERSTANDS, IT IS BEING NEEDED.

By Tuesday, National Coffee Day proper, the yard had gone through eleven pounds of beans, four gallons of milk, and one entire spool of paper cups Ralph had to drive out for at lunch. Linda II hissed and steamed and pulled shot after shot without one single complaint, because if there is one thing that machine understands, it is being needed.

11 POUNDS OF BEANS · 1 APRON, UNEXPLAINED ORIGIN · 1 CORTADO, APPROVED · 2 NODS IN RECORDED MARITAL HISTORY

RDK Truck Sales · Tampa, Florida

1997Founded
8,400+Trucks sold
In stockParts
Count on itService

Happy National Coffee Day from RDK Truck Sales. However you take yours — black, fancy, or steamed by a man in a swoosh apron who has no business being this good at it — we hope it starts your morning right.

Gary, Russ, Ralph, Linda, and Linda II are affectionate fiction. The yard going through eleven pounds of coffee beans in one week is, regrettably, a documented fact.

Call (813) 241-0711
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