21.8.07

Murphy.

Usually I am a pretty patient person. Usually. Thing is, of late it seems that the majority of humanity has been aiming various slings and barbs (pointy kine, not boobs kine) at me. Because of this inconsiderate attention being paid to my niceness, I have revolted. Yeah, no more Mr. Nice Kanaka.

Oh but, what prey tell, has led you down this evil infested road of woe, beachdog?
Ya just had to ask, eh?

In a effort to lessen the depletion of the ozone, I bought a Moped a month or so back. That and I was tired as fuck of paying 3 something and a left nut for gas; it was a good intended plan. Of course this was met with visions of insurance policy cash-ins by ol’ whats her name, but … Ha! I never paid the premiums, so there! Not really, but WTF, I can act tough over the type written bravado here, I guess. It goes pretty well, and for all intensive purposes, saves some coin for Vegas, maybe. No, not Baby, …Maybe. Anyways, I ride and get from job1 to job2 without any problems or major nuclear disasters….until the other night going home from job2. It rains here in paradise; for real. It does. At night once in awhile. Like the other night. I am minding my own business, riding along at my 45 MPH (a billion KPH for you metrically challenged) - and the rain is pelting me in a unforgiving way. Now, just a island primer for those who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting my little space of happiness over here; raining doesn’t mean rain all the time. Matter of fact, rain is passing like in seconds. It can come down pretty hard, and then voila!, sunshine. Or in this case, the dark of night. Anywhooose, piloting this death ship, I am just about 1 mile from the warmth of well, something, when some unseen evilness grabs the damn moped, and throws my already tired ass to the ground.

Being that I am pretty experienced in falling; I fall with all the grace of a wounded mullet. And splay out all over the wet and increasingly hard asphalt. I am just glad it was 1130 at night (that’s 2330 for you psycho-military types) and no much traffic was on the highway. Bounding back up from my latest encounter with mother earth, I check that no spurts are coming from places that usually don’t, and hop on the mechanical nightmare, and restart and off to home. Being too tired to check the moped for injury, I enter to a sleeping home. Shower off the various items of road attached to small dings in my leg and foot, and off to bed.

In the morning, I find that the death metal is fine, and ready to take me to good old job1. Job1 being the good old Firehouse. Good old, fire. Yep. And its raining, again. So off I goes, at 0530 AM. (that’s 530 AM…Dick, ain’t I?) I end up at a intersection, waiting like you are suppose to, when the bloody light is red. Crackheads seem to follow me around in life, BTW. Crackhead Bob was behind me, apparently. Crackhead Bob did not see the light, I guess. When Crackhead Bob started the pressing of brakes, Crackhead Bob was pretty fucking close to ….good old dumb ass, me. Crackhead Bobs squealing wheels created a forceful explosion of…..well almost shit. That’s cause Bob slid out, and slammed into the guardrail. Being the good guy, I called 911 for him. Fucktard. Once my heart started beating a rate less than Pi R Squared, (cause Pies R round) – I went off to work. Firehouse was the calmest part of my day 24 hours of fun, fun, fun. The thing is, after 24 hours, I gotta ride back home. Only had one almost this time. I mean WTF? Jesus Christmas, who the hell did I piss the hell off? After a month a riding this thing, I thought most of the ‘tards would avoid me.

Of course, that is just 2 of 3 days in this adventure.

Aloha.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

Hey, you be careful out there.

Seeing more & more of these mopeds in northern Michigan this summer, 'cause more and more folks with DUI convictions are buyin' 'em (which is illegal in Michigan, btw, if you have a suspended license, but they take their chances 'cause everyone's gotta get to work, right?), which adds more smallish, difficult to see targets (forgive me for that word) to the also growing population of already heavy summer bicycle traffic, and drivers -- especially impatient tourist drivers -- aren't always on the look-out.

(Did I tell you we had a 6 year old child, vacationing with his parents, from Greece no less, get killed on US 31 near the state park? Yes, it was dark. The tourists didn't realize we have a pedestrian bridge crossing the highway for a reason. Still, the driver should KNOW to watch out at night near the state park, or anywhere in this town, especially during summer.)

I worry about Moose on the crotch rocket. I worry about Beanpole on the bicycle. I worry about ALL my peeps not being careful enough driving cars. It's so easy to brake too late, or swerve too late, or time the turn to account for the little guy in your blind spot.

So you be careful. And wear your brain bucket, mister. :-)

I probably sound like your mother.