I try to steer clear of anything that sounds too fruity, and anything that even whiffs of the French is definitely too fruity for me. But, when I needed a truck bed cover for my Dodge, the one I bought said ?tonneau? on the box. I was furious?the nerd at the local truck accessories shop must have known I would have stormed out before buying a frog product and hid the name from me. Anyways, I immediately went back and asked for a refund. What I got was a quick education in truck bed covers.

The guy behind the desk told me that, not only was this ?tonneau? not French, it was made by a company called Access right here in America. Apparently, they inherited this wimpy euro name somewhere in the last 15 years, when soft vinyl covers became very popular. A ?tonneau?, actually, was the name for the snap cover for the back seat of old cars, like Model Ts and such.

So, how did this name overtake something simple like ?bed cover? or ?truck bed cover?? Well, it had vinyl, and snaps, so some people couldn't bother to separate them from a product that stopped appearing with regularity sometime after the Gatsbys of the world disappeared. At least that's what that dork at the shop told me.

Me, I think it was a conspiracy, put on by the same censoring suits and hippies who back the liberal media conspiracy. Liberals love to spread French words and that hate-America-first, surrender-now attitude. It wouldn't surprise me if they were trying to soften the truck-owning heart of America with wimpy language and gas-guzzler taxes like a 1-2 punch. If you have a truck bed cover, you're still an all-American soldier, fighting for the American way. If you have a tonneau cover, though, you're a weaker, softer drone just waiting for secular progressives to drag you along on their plans to fatten the wallets of New England elites. It's a subtle word change, but it means so much more.

Right here and now, I'm calling for an extension of the French boycott that covers these fruity ?tonneau covers.? From now on, they should be known as truck bed covers or freedom covers. If they're not marked as such on the box, don't buy it. Let the truck accessories dealers of America know what they're supporting when they carry tonneau covers. I called the folks at Access and told them about the cause, and they told me they saw things my way, so I ended up buying one of their fine American covers anyway. They assured me that the name would change before I needed one for my next truck. And, they blacked out the word tonneau anywhere it appeared on the box. It'll do for now.