it's a colorful language

I was leaving the drugstore this evening, strolling by the cashier after picking up a prescription and as I passed, this nice young woman said, "Have a good one!" I said, "Thanks," and was out the door.

Once outside, I stopped and stared at the sidewalk. For years I have heard people use this expression and I have always felt as though there was a crucial bit of information missing. I guess we all assume that the speaker is simply trying to say "Have a nice day," without sounding quite so lame. Or maybe they feel that the old phrase has just been spoken too many times in human history, that it lacks sincerity.

Maybe I'm too literal by nature, but I always want to go back to the speaker and ask, "Have a good what?" Don't you agree that "one" is such a general pronoun? It could mean anything:

Have a good life? You don't know me that well.

Have a good time at the movies? You have no idea where I am going.

Have a good trip to the dentist? You must be a sadist.

We may never know what is in the mind of people who urge you to "Have a good one," so we are left to explore the origin of this expression if there is to be any closure on this issue. I have a theory and here it goes.

Around the time CB radios were all the rage on the highways and byways of America, we civilians discovered the existence of an entire subculture comprised of over-the-road truck drivers. The blue-collar romance of the open road seemed appealing to all us poor souls who only traveled on occasion.


I used to listen to these guys on the CB while taking long summer trips in the family RV. This was back in the mid-70s and the most amazing thing to me was that these CB-ers had a different word for everything. Smokey the Bear was a state trooper (probably because of the similarities in the state troopers' hats and the forest ranger's hat worn by that famous talking bear). A lot lizard was a truck-stop hooker. Double nickel meant that the speed limit was 55 mph. It was such a colorful language and we were all so envious that we spent $119 at the nearest Radio Shack, plunked an ugly antenna on the trunk lid, and started driving. (It's no accident that leisure suits were popular around the same time. We were sheep and you could have sold us anything, even a pet rock.)

So, you have these two truckers, been at the job a long time, and they know each other simply because they have traveled the same roads all these years. They're talking briefly after a chance meeting at a truck stop. As they part, the first trucker heads towards his rig and his friend heads to the bathroom. Now, the first trucker, being economical in speech, but with a certain flair born of the subculture, says, "Have a good one!"

The second trucker has never heard this expression before and he's contemplating the meaning a few minutes later as he sits on the toilet. After a time, a revelation emerges and this trucker is convinced that his buddy was wishing for him a good bowel movement.

It's a scene that plays over in my head every time someone encourages me to "Have a good one." It sometimes causes me to clench my backside a little, feeling as though some stranger is worrying about the later stages of my digestive system.

Maybe my new prescription will help me get over this abnormal interest in such a benign little phrase. My psychiatrist has prescribed some pills to "help take the edge off," as he put it.