What supplies did you first (or wish you did) buy and/or bring with you when you first became an over-the-road driver? What supplies could essentially make or break the job for you? What are those things that could make/or have made life on the road worlds easier for you? No list is too long. Thanks for sharing.

a cooler with food and drink at your fingertips, so when you get stuck at a receiver for 7 hours on a friday night....well, it's one less thing.

Can of ether, but dont tell anyone you have it! Can save you in a pickle though.

The cooler, preferably electric or battery.
Packaged foods that can be heated on their own like MRE's.
A Burton 12volt stove or 2.
Snacks for munching on the road to help stay awake.
A decent stereo, cb, tv, computer w/aircard.
An apporpriate number of discs to play.
A couple gals of water for eme cleaning or drinking.
A few cans of spray window cleaner.
Hand cleaner w/pumice &/or de-greaser.
Baby wipes.
Several rolls of towels & toilet paper.
Bag of throw away work rags.
A stow away porta potty.
Water to fill the porta potty.
Some air freshener or Fabreeze.
Interior cleaner like Simple Green etc.
A couple weeks worth of bedsheets, pillow cases etc.
A good blanket or sleeping bag, maybe both.
Extra toiletries, shampoo, toothpaste etc.
A shaving kit for cleaning up w/o a shower.
Extra clothing (naturally).
A good coat or jacket for the winter.
A ski mask type hat.
Good anti-slip shoes/soles.
Work gloves.
Nice gloves for making the trek to the T/S.
Outside work boots/shoes.
A pair of "inside" slippers or shoes.
Some throw rugs all around the inside.
The best driving/sunglasses you can afford.
A second pair for when you loose/break the above.
Some reading materials.
Maybe a "driving pillow" for a little extra back support.
Your "not too old" mapbooks.
A decent flashlight & extra batteries.
A plug in spot light w/hi intensity lamp.
A few basic handtools.
Spare nuts/bolts/screws/hose clamps.
Tape & bailing wire.
Light bulbs.
Wire nuts or crimp connectors w/crimper.
Some extra wire, red & black.
Extra fuel filters w/a small container of fuel.
Apropriate tools for removing/installing filters.
Extra belts, hoses & clamps.
Toolkit for above.
An extra trailer cord.
Extra bunjee cords.
A fifth wheel puller.
A tire gauge.
Some extra glad hand grommets.
An air fitting on your tanks or glad hand to fill tires from.
The apropriate length hose w/air chuck.
Some extra wheel bearing oil & covers.
A gallon of bug juice.
A gallon of engine oil.
A gallon or 2 of antifreeze.
Anti-gel juice.
Jumper cables, long & heavy wires.
Small wisk broom or 12v vacuum.
A sixth sense for seeing stoopidity before it gets to you.
A good attitude that keeps you from running over stoopidity.
A little fear thrown in for good measure.
That's most of it.
Add your own lil extras as needed.

Thanks for the list. I copied it w/ qoutes and attributed it correctly so I can give it to my classmates. This forum i a GREAT source of info, many thanks to you veteran drivers!!

LOL...sounds like you've made that mistake.

If I had to narrow my list down to just 5 things. Ether would be on the list for sure, along with other "critical" winter supplies, like anti-gel and a sub zero sleeping bag.

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Okay this is probably idiotic. By all means feel free to call me one, but... Could you possibly elaborate on the need for ether?

Not idiotic at all.
If you let the truck sit in the cold too long, it's nice to have some ether to get it going.
If you managed to run it out of fuel, the ether comes in handy to get it running again.
If the fuel gelled on you & added some anti-gel, ether will help get it started.

The only problem is that some motors become addicted to the stuff.
When you go to start them, it sounds like they're saying "gimme ether...gimme ether...gimme ether".

That, plus, ether doesn't have much in the way of lubricant so you dont want to use much of it.

A little too much will wash the lubricant fuel off the cylinder walls & cause scoring of the liner & worst cases, take a head off.

Some "cold country" trucks had a ether dispenser system on a dash board push button.

Ah I see. In that case, I'd probably hold onto a little.

Yup in Canadian winters, always a good thing to have HIDDEN in the cab somewhere!