The interior and exterior design for American Grunt is finished! We're on track for a release THIS MONTH! Once it's available, the book is print on demand so we should be able to get the run of preorders done and shipped to you pretty quickly after that. Just wanted to keep you all updated. I'll let everyone know as soon as we have a verified release date. 

Also if you've moved since November, please keep an eye out for the next update. Getting pumped! Thanks everyone.

Anyway, here's a little snippet of complete ridiculousness from my time working at a large car rental place in Monroeville.

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I once got sent in a minivan to pick up four engineers at the DoubleTree hotel who’d apparently flown into Pittsburgh for a meeting at Westinghouse. From there, they had to drive on to Washington D.C. for a conference. It shouldn’t have been a big deal except that these guys were from China, spoke almost no English, and were in no way familiar with western customs. I got them back to the branch, where I parked and hopped out, closing the door behind me, assuming they’d follow. They didn’t.

I got about three steps before turning around. Through the open driver's window, I saw all four of them desperately tugging on the door handles in a mild state of panic. The one dude who knew a little bit of English yelled like I was abandoning them in a compromised reactor core. “Sir, sir, we are trapped! Sir, we are trapped!”

I can damn near guarantee that by almost every metric, those four dudes were far superior in intellect than I am. But watching them frantically tugging on the door handles instead of calmly assessing the situation almost broke me. I laughed into my elbow as I tried to figure out why the hell they couldn’t get out of the…

I reached down and flipped a button on the door. “Child lock was on, guys. Last customer had the child - anyway you can get out now.”

“Sir, we are imprisoned! Please respond!"

I just chuckled and opened the sliding door. They were very gracious. “Thank you. Thank you,” they said as if I’d just pulled them from a burning plane.

But that’s not the end of the story. Through Westinghouse, they had a deal whereby the minivan needed to be topped off with gas before they left. The van we rented them was only half full so Anthony gave me the office gas card and keys to a random Toyota and told them to follow me to the Sunoco just down the road. You couldn’t go left onto Route 22 from our parking lot, so we had to turn right, then make two more rights to get over there. Everything was peachy until we hit the four way stop in the residential neighborhood down the hill. Cars were coming from all directions. This was going to be interesting.

When it was my turn, I continued to go straight toward the Sunoco about a hundred yards ahead. I didn’t actually need to peer into the rearview mirror to see if they’d freaked out and just followed me. The fanfare of horns said it all. One guy’s hairy arm was out his truck window going back and forth between a fist and a middle finger. He continued to ride their ass and honk the entire way to the gas station, briefly stopping to shout obscenities as he drove past. Welcome to the USA!

I was waiting at the pump with the gas card when they got out, eyes wide and knees quivering. “Sir, how,” the driver said, gesturing back to the intersection. “Sir, please. How?”

I’ve done a lot of futile things in my life, but attempting to explain the mechanics of a four way stop at to someone who has no idea what you’re saying is right up near the top. Finally, I found a few pieces of garbage and laid them out in front of the gas pump as they huddled beside me. I looked like I was trying to teach them a new inbounds play as I moved the trash toward a four-corners style spot where the concrete slabs all connected. For three minutes I changed up the order of how the garbage approached the little intersection, hoping they’d notice that the first one to arrive always got to go first.

“Yes?” I said giving them a thumbs up.

The still frazzled driver said “Yes, thank you sir,” but I was skeptical he’d understood. I filled up their van and they drove off. Just as they were pulling out, I began to yell, “Hey, don’t forget to get a ticket before you get on the Turnpik…nevermind.” 

Anyway, if you ever see four haggard Chinese guys in muddy Dockers wandering the Pennsylvania countryside, you now know their origin story.