Excerpt of the Week: Geek Factor

This week’s excerpt is from Truck: A Love Story (hardcover here, paperback here, eBook options here):

Those of us who covet International pickups nurture a perverse sort of pride. Open the cab and you will catch a whiff of geek. As trucks go, Internationals lack the pop culture resonance of a Ford or Chevy, nor do they have the arcane appeal of the rarities—say, a Studebaker Champ. Internationals reside somewhere in the dull middle, associated more with plowed fields than the open road. The heritage of the International Harvester Company is strictly agricultural. Have you heard an International owner make affectionate reference to his truck as a binder? Binder is shorthand for corn binder. How hip can you be, driving a truck nicknamed after an obsolete piece of horse-drawn farm equipment? This is like nicknaming your laptop the slide rule. One feels the geek factor giving way to dork factor.