Monday, November 29, 2004

Hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving! How cool was I?

As you may have noticed, I stopped blogging for a few days on the matter of the Mid East conflict. Hope I didn't leave too many hanging. I'll be back on that this week. Instead, I spent my Thanksgiving enjoying my family and scribbling down an idea I had for a book that's been swimming in my head for awhile. I was just lacking a few key components, like, what, when, why and where. Nothing major :)

Now that I finally got it down in writing, I can play with it some more. I re-wrote the entire second chapter as a matter of fact and added chapter three. Four will be on it's way this evening or the next day depending. I have to catch up on all the work that I missed on Friday. You know, the job that actually pays me for doing something and going somewhere.

Then this week it's back to the mid east conflict. I have to say, reading all of the history has certainly put some ideas in my head on how to flesh out the characters in my book. So, if you're still interested in the Mid east and can't wait for me to get on tearing it apart while I jot down my little dream of being a writer, please go back to the older posts on the mid east situation and read any of the sources that I posted. It's all fascinating. At least if you love history like me.

If you can hold off on the seriousness a bit and don't mind reading some fiction, hop over here and indulge in some amateur writing.

By the way, I did leave the comment section open there. Since I've been posting all sorts of interesting stuff on this blog and leaving myself open for any who-ha that decides they know better than me or just interesting comments from my friends, I figured I could take the criticism and not curl up in a ball and die if anyone doesn't like it. Like most of what I write, it's about me. Selfish I know, but it's me enjoying two of my favorite hobbies put together: reading and writing.

Ok, motorcycles are actually my favorite hobby, but since it's colder than a polar bear's ass here this time of year, and yes, I am a fair weather rider, AND the motorcycle will simply not fit in the office space, nor does it come with an Ethernet adapter for the computer, reading and writing, by necessity, have booted the motorcycle from the top space until sometime in at least March. Unless I go down to my bro's in Tucson where we can rent bikes and drive into the desert until night time where I can then experience freezing my ass off in the desert instead of some back road of Missouri.

Did I tell you that I also play the guitar? I am multi-talented. Ok..I'm good, but Metallica nor George Straight will be knocking on my door and I have been known to make Jimi Hendrix turn over in his grave. Be that as it may, I can actually strum a tune or two and have folks actually know what I'm trying to play.

Except for "Freebird". I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I actually detest that song. Why? You try growing up on the plains of Kansas and Missouri, attending keg parties out of the back of pick up trucks with big ass bonfires and have twenty drunk redneck guys come over and ask you to play the song, over and over and over again, so they can stand around in their holy jeans, beat ass sneakers, Metallica T-shirts underneath a flannel shirt, slopping their beer out of plastic cups they stole out of their mom's cabinet, or acting like they are cool by punching a hole in the top of their beer can and then one in the bottom, trying to guzzle it as it pours out, so it can slosh out all over them and anyone standing by, then smashing the cup or the can on their foreheads while making the "rock and roll forever sign" of the thumb, index finger and pinky, shouting "FREEBIRD!"

Did I just say how much I really hate that song?

Alright, my youth did not traumatize me. At least, not too much, but there is only so many times you can repeat an episode before beginning to think that you are stuck in a time warp. Oh yeah, other traumatizing song: Time Warp.

Let's do the time warp again....
Let's do the time warp again....
It's a step to the left...
Then a step to the right...

That's it. That's all I care to remember. Tim Curry in bikini underwear and a garter belt was just a little too much for my mind. As a matter of fact, the first time I saw that movie I was on a date and the theater was doing a marathon "Rocky Horror Picture Show" complete with the weird people who showed up dressed like the characters and stood up in front of the screen acting out the parts. Toast anyone? If you don't know what I'm talking about then you've never had the experience of having toast come flying over your head at a movie theater. Did I tell you that was a one and only date with that guy?

Ummm...ok, now that I've written that little diatribe, I realize that some of my readers may have enjoyed just such a moment. No offense anyone. It's just that I was a bit backwards back then. Not nearly as outgoing as I am today.

Back to the rednecks in the field. I just wanted to say to my city bound readers. WE DO NOT DO COW TIPPING!

Umm...I know that was a little forceful, but I can't tell you how many times, while living in Philly, somebody found out I was from the great Midwest and asked me if I went "cow tipping."

News flash. I even lived on a farm and we never heard of this. The first time somebody asked me, I thought they were full of crap. Like when your grandpa asks you if you want to go "snipe hunting". If you don't know what that is, don't ask. Just tell the person that asks you, "NO!" You'll be safe and relatively, psychologically sound.

So I asked my friend, "Cow tipping?" "Yeah," he said. "You know, when you go into the field and find a sleeping cow and push it over?"

Uh...no dumbass, I don't know. Were you drunk? Smoking something that was laced with something? Who the hell goes into a field and tips cows, for the love of Pete?

Another news flash. Where I'm from, we don't play with our food before we eat it. Just a redneck thing I guess.

Oh..did I tell you that I was chased by a cow when I was ten? Yeah. A big black Angus cow named "Ida". She chased me clean across my grandparents' field where I ran into a slat fence that was missing the bottom slat, so I practiced my "on fire" technique of "stop, drop and roll" under the fence. I looked back to see one of my uncles had bulldogged the bitch. Then I looked down and saw that I was still holding a handful of alf-alfa which is why she was chasing me.

Another pointer here from the land of the red, white and red: drop the food before you start walking. You don't know what might decide to follow you.

Did I tell you that I like my steak medium rare? No? How about after that little episode, when grandpa took the calves off to market, it didn't bother me a bit. Little calves turn into big cows and big cows are stupid and mean. Or, just stupid and that can be dangerous itself. I had more than one nine hundred pound bovine step on my foot. Let me tell you, that really sucks when you're wearing your favorite ked tennies. Hurts like hell. And the stupid bastards will just stand there, too, no matter how much you push and shove.

I like my steak medium rare.

Chickens, too. Not medium rare, but I don't mind eating them. My grandparents kept some for laying hens and, when we stayed with them, we had to take our turn getting the eggs. Let's just say I was never fast enough. Those evil birds from hell would peck the hell out of my hands before I could even get one egg. I always tried to bribe my youngest brother to go do it for me. He was like Mikey. He'd do anything. Eat anything, too. We were kind of mean I guess. We'd make "mud pies" literally and my youngest brother would eat them. I always told him that's why he's got rocks in his head.

Ok...maybe I was traumatized in my youth. Is there a doctor in the house?

Really, I was a nerd. I read all the time. My folks threatened to punish me by making me go to my room. Then they got smart and said they'd make me go to my room without a book. That was punishment. I was in band, too. I didn't play the guitar. I played the trumpet, third chair out of ten. Not bad considering I was the only girl in the whole brass section. All the other girls played flutes, clarinets and oboes. But I was still cool. As the third seat on the JV band, I had dibs when the marching band or senior orchestra were in need of a pair of lips. Then there was the summer I hung out with the jazz band at Crown Center where we got to play with some of the greats.

Ok..I was only cool with the folks I hung out with, but that was...you know...cool.

I was also cool for other reasons of course. My dad was a cop. Not just any cop, the officer in charge at Juvenile Court. That meant any number of Johnny Rebels were always sucking up to me. Looking for a contact. Mostly, I was just embarrassed when somebody asked me if my Dad was "Officer H...". umm...yeah..no..Why do you wanna know? I was certainly not going to tell pops that some career criminal was asking for my home phone number. After awhile, they figured out that I didn't play that game. But that was cool, too. A relief actually. The only problem was, I was the nerdy daughter of the top cop at juvy. Nobody, but nobody was inviting you to their party. Even other cops' kids.

Still, I was cool.

Ok...maybe it was because everyone wanted me to be their lab partner, or their composition partner, or their report partner. Whatever. Jocks and cheerleaders knew my name, but I still didn't hang with them. My friends were...nerds actually. Like me. Or worse. Two of the guys in our group literally blew up the one guy's parents' garage distilling rocket fuel. We went to the quiz-o-ramas at the colleges for math and history contests. I was in the Spanish club. We got top spot for our Spanish heritage display. Now I can say, "Como se llama?" (What is your name?) Me llama es Kat (My name is Kat). Que hora es? (what time is it?) Donde es la bano (banyo)? Where is the bathroom? Ayuda me! (help me! - very handy in Mexico I hear). Yo tengo hambre. (I am hungry)...Chenga tu madre (I'll let you figure that one out)

Ok...you get the drift. Just enough to get me in trouble, I'm sure. After that, I can read some Spanish and get the general drift, but fluency, even after three years, escapes me.

I was still cool. Alright..I was cool because I had a car. Not just any car, either. A 1978 Formula Firebird with a 400 Pontiac, glass packs, hurricane rims and an eight track/radio. No..It wasn't new when I owned it. Cassettes were big at that time, but that was ok. I just ripped off a few of my parents' eight tracks. Rick Springfield: I wish that I had Jesse's girl. How can I find a woman like that?

Dude...right here. Me. Pick me. What the hell? Jesse was a bit of an asshole. Guess the car wasn't a guy magnet after all. At least not the kind that wanted to date me. Mostly, they just wanted to race. The car was racing orange with a black stripe on the bottom of the car on the air molding that said "Formula" in silver letters. It had duel hood scoops back when hood scoops still had a reason to exist. With a 400 Pontiac and posi-transmission, it was hell on wheels and so was I. After seventeen years of being the "good girl", I was bad.

We would go down to the bottoms where all the warehouses were. Behind them was a flat road. Speaker road. It was blocked from the main road by the warehouses. That meant we could drag down there a good part of the night and never get caught. Well, until one night. We were hanging. I hadn't raced yet. Nobody asked that night. Our racing wasn't the "line up and take the next fool in line" variety. It was by arrangement between the car owners.

On this night, I was hanging at the top of the road with the rest of the crowd, leaning on my car and playing cool like Pinky Tuscadaro. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you are probably not old enough to be reading this blog. Try google. Anyway, I'm leaning on the car and some guy walks up and asks me if I had any "papers". "Papers? You want to race for papers? No way." The guy just sort of looked at me all confused and said, "Uh...no dudette. You know "papers"?" and he made a little rolling motion with his fingers.

Shit. I was still a square. Nope. No papers. I might be a bad ass with a lead foot, but drugs...nope. A ticket the pops would fix. Drugs was a major ass kicking. The car would go away and forget hanging on a Saturday. That was just a little to risky for me. And, considering the "old man" was the top cop at Juvy, I figured he'd seen it all, heard it all, smelled it all. "Sorry..no can do. Try those guys over there." He walked on and I looked over to where the cars were lined up getting ready to race. My middle bro, the one who's about 1.5 years younger than me, was talking to his two friends who had squared off against each other. Middle bro had a '78 Chevy Camaro. White with a big hood scoop in the center. The ass was jacked up with air shocks and he had the precursors to spinners for rims with hacked off glass packs as tailpipes. We were the ass kicking "H...s". But we really didn't hang with the same crowd. You know, he was two grades behind me and it was not cool to hang with the JV.

That night, he wasn't racing either. Probably the best thing that ever happened to us. Robbie Schneider was lined up with his blue metallic Chevelle, 1972. It had a white stripe down the middle and was jacked up in the back. He was sporting cherry bombs for tailpipes. They were loud as he sat at the line. His challenger was my bro's other friend, Eric Lombardo. He had a gold Nova. I don't remember the year, but it was when Novas were squared off and still had an engine. His Nova had a three speed on the tree (steegin column). I remember because, one night, we were all jacking around (one of the few nights that we hung out) and some gang members from down on central started chasing us and Eric's car dropped second gear. You ever try to take a clover exit off a highway while going 65 with only first and third gear? Aye carumba!

Anyway, the guys jump in their cars and start revving them up. The whole crowd, maybe a hundred people in about thirty cars, were getting behind them and yelling out stuff. "Don't drop a gear, Eric!" "Kick his ass, Robbie!" My bro's in between them, holding his arms up in the air and then he drops his arms and the tires are squealing, smoke is rolling and motors are screaming. It was like a scene out of American Graffiti. The only difference was that we were listening to Bon Jovi and not Buddy Holly.

They got about half way down Speaker, where the lighting isn't so good and most of what you could see were their taillights and the outline of the car occasionally as it passed under a light, when I could see Eric's taillights start fish tailing. Holy Shit! I thought we were going to see a big one right then. But Robbie puts the hammer down and pulls away and Eric pulls it out and they start going hell bent for leather towards the end of the road again. Then they reached about three quarters of the way down. All of a sudden, out of no where, these cop cars with their lights flashing and sirens blaring come pulling into the road blocking it off. Eric and Robbie hit their breaks and I thought I was going to see the big bang after all as both of them were fishtailing to a stop.

Did I say "Holy Shit?" already? You should have seen the chaos. Like somebody poured a can of gasoline on an ant hill. Everybody was running for their cars. We could hear more sirens coming. I looked over just long enough to make sure my bro was jumping in his car and I ran for mine. For a minutes I was kicking myself on having parked so close to the other road because it was far away while I was running. When I reached the car, there were cars all around so I ditched the idea of trying to open the door and did my one and only "Dukes of Hazard" entry through the window. Don't ask me how. Firebird windows are not really made for "Dukes of Hazard" entries. Do not try that at home! You could get hurt. A concussion even.

Anyway, I cranked the key and that's when I realized providence was looking out for me. Being so close to the road, I wasn't blocked in like some of the others. I just threw it in reverse and got the flock out of there, only checking in my rearview mirror long enough to make sure my bro was behind me. We made like bats out of hell down some back roads until we hit Peter's Drive-in. That was the "IN" place when we were cruising. Everybody wanted to be seen there. The smart people go there early and got a space. The rest of us usually had to content ourselves with driving through the pick up window and waving at anyone that we knew before cruising on. Usually, though, I didn't like sitting. I wanted to run so Peter's was only good for a coke and a wave.

That night, we got there and the place was a little empty. Most of the known folks were still back at Speaker road trying to get the hell out of there before the cops busted them. So, we parked side by side and a couple other friends showed up. We got some fries and some cokes and then laughed about how we'd barely missed out on that catastrophe. This was long before cell phones by the way, so we didn't have anyway to know what happened with Eric and Robbie until morning. Not that we cared. We were invinvcible and immortal.

A little bit after midnight, we knew we had to get on home. Our curfew was 1 AM. Yeah, I was eighteen then, but it didn't matter. I lived in their house and school wasn't over yet. We drove in laughing and joking about the raid and my dad comes to the door and flips the porch light on. "Where've you two been?" Deer in headlights. We weren't too damn good at lying, even for teenagers. "Umm...we were down at Peter's drive in." I reached in and grabbed my "Peters" cup as nonchalantly as I could and took a sip out of it. Butter would not have melted in my mouth. Dad kept looking at us for a minute and then he said, "you sure you weren't down on Speaker Road? They busted some of your friends down there. I heard it on the radio (the policeman's radio)." Cough..sputter...kaw.."Sorry...ice. I sucked a piece of ice up the straw. Um...no Dad, we were up at Peters most of the night and cruising around." Fingers crossed behind the door of the car.

"Damn good thing. Everybody they could catch got tickets and some boys had their cars towed. I would've been pissed if I had to take care of some tickets or get your cars out of lockup. Well, just don't stand there. Get in the house. Your letting the mosquitoes in."

"Ok, Dad. We'll be right in. Just let me lock up my car." He walked in and middle bro and I exchanged looks across the tops of our cars. Phew! That was a close call.

I always felt bad for my youngest bro. He was three years behind my middle bro. By the time our Dad got through with us, he had vowed to never buy another one of his kids a sports car again. And since youngest bro was the only one he had left, he was getting screwed.

Do you know what a Dodge Omni is?

7 comments:

Jason Rubenstein said...

There's a Triumph with my name on it, and not soon enough. But that's a story for later, I think.

What a story... and being kid whose Dad had "Clout", boy I can relate. The Curmudge worked for the city at a 'high-poobah' level... and we didn't really want to test how much trouble he could get us out of.

Now, take a muscle car or two and race to someone's house from school - all on Chicago city streets *and* through narrow city alleys. Asfastaspossible. Clip a garbage can and not only do you send Mrs. Sullivans' leftovers all over someone's backyard but you scratch one side of your car a lovely, but impractical, shade of new steel. This is why the Curmudge never lent me his 1974 Mercury Grand Marquis with the 465 under the acres of hood. Not that I'd know how to drop the keel in that thing. .

Kat said...

Mike, sweety, I've got all the gear. Full face helmet, thermal gloves, thermal underwear, insulated pants, insulated leather jacket with a zip out liner, chaps, special boots that cost me $120. Face mask.

I've ridden in every kind of weather. 114* heat (seriously, on a 2500 mile trip in August. Can you say "heat stroke"?) LOL The lowes temperature was about 41* and it felt like 20 below with the wind. Even with all that gear on, by time I got home, my hands were frozen in position, my knees were frozen in position and I couldn't feel my cheeks, lips or nose. Oh year, I even had a full windshield on, but when the wind is doing about 10, while that's no biggy in 60* weather, at 41* it sucked. Everything was so cold, by the time I thawed out, it actually hurt.

I'm not big on pain. I hate pain. LOL From then on it's mid march to mid November. The bike goes away after that because it's usually (like now) about 36* during the day and the snow comes. then it's like 14* with a windchill factor of -5. Call me a wimp, but the bike gets put up. LOL

My bike is a 1981 Suzuki 850L. An 80's version of a touring bike. It's been stripped down and gone through. No extra aluminum, no pretty parts. The frame was powder coated black along with the 4 in 1 exhaust. The motor was sand blasted and polished so it's now shiny aluminum. It's got a mikuna 4 barrel with racing jets for the carb and the seat is a harley seat that my dad helped me customize. Not one of those little bitty brick seats, either. The kind with a nice fat touring seat on the front for long distance riding and a brick on the back for the passenger to discourage requests of that nature. LOL

I bought it for $1300 four years ago off a guy with a limp and a cane. He and his buddy drag raced street bikes and he had crashed. Not that bike, but another one. didn't matter. His wife said, "sale" and he did. The only thing, when I bought it, I had to get a different clutch on it. The old one wasn't really old. It was a racing clutch and so damn stiff I had to stand on the pegs to get leverage to pull it in to change gears. Since I nearly killed myself the first day I had it, I ran out and had a regular clutch put on.

Maybe I'm giving too much away, but I love fast cars and fast bikes. This bike will come off the line and do eighty in third gear before even getting close to the redline. Of course, one day, and I have many of these one days which I'll tell about sometime, but, on this day, we were cruising back from st Louis on hwy 70. Basically a straight shot on a Sunday, not much traffic. so, a bunch of us are out on 70 in the middle of no where when the lead bike kicks it up. That was a 1500 harley, so he had almost 650 cc on me. Off the line I could beat him everytime, but he walked away on the open hwy.

Didn't give me a pause, I kicked it down a gear and cranked the throttle. The windshield was a full windshield but I had it cranked back a bit for aero dynamics. This is a touring bike you understand, but I laid down across the tank behind the windshielf and put my feet on the rear pegs and that seemed to give me about another 5 mph. The speedometer only goes to 95 believe it or not. I had the needle buried. I dropped my left foot back down and brought it back into 5th. By that time, all I could see was a little space in front of me. My peripheral vision was nothing but a blur of colors and we were passing everything on the right.

There were a few smaller bikes with us and they were trying like hell to keep up. I was the second biggest bike (first was the 1500).

At this point, the speedometer needle is just stuck over on the right side and jumping up and down because it couldn't go any farther. I had no idea how fast I was going, I just noticed that the big bike was still walking away, so I crouched down even further and had the throttle fully open.

It was exhilirating and scary all at once. Like flying.

all of a sudden I hear a pop and the speedometer goes dead. I broke the cable. Didn't matter. the big bike was topping out but I still had about 3000 RPMs before redline so I was slowly inching up.

Just about then, this stupid ass in a sea foam green camaro whips out in the lane in front of me while I have a diesel to my right. I think the guy was doing 70 (the speed limit). you ever hear "aim for the hole"?

We were going down hill so the diesel was picking up speed and scrunching the hole between his left front fender and the camaros right rear fender. There was no way I could shut it down that fast and live to tell about it and the chances of making in the hole was slim to none, but I was taking slim over crashing on the grassy median. At 100+ crashing is just bad.

So I cranked the throttle back the last quarter inch left and zoomed through the hole. Unbeknownst to me my stupid ass younger brother was right behind me and barely made it, too. My other cousin was not so lucky and he ended up driving on the shoulder beside the camaro.

For those that don't ride, that's called an "ass clencher". Which means, when you get off the bike, you have to unclench your ass in order to pull the seat out of it..

Anyway, just as I come out in front of the diesel, directly to my right, I see the big bike take an exit. I swing to the right still doing about 100+ as I barely made the exit. Thank the lord above the exit ramp was long. At least long enough for me to gear down and stand on the breaks, coming to a screeching halt right beside the big bike at the stop sign at the top of the ramp. My uncle on the big bike turns to me and yells "What took you so long?"

At which point I finally look back and see that my brother is riding a wheely up the grassy embankment of the ramp because he missed the asphalt part and my cousin is being stupid and riding up the entrance ramp the wrong way because he totally missed the exit all together.

I'm like, "Dude...why are we stopping?" He points over to my gas tank.."don't you need gas?" I look down...er..sure enough, I'm on E, empty. Did I tell you that this little speed demon bike only gets 30 miles to the gallon? "Er...thanks. I do."

We drive over to the gas station, get off, pump gas, I walk with really shaky legs to the side of the parking area and try to light a cigarette. My hands were shaking so bad I couldn't hold the flame steady. My bro and my cousin come over and one of them grabs my cigarrette and takes a big drag. Neither of them smoke.

Mikey starts choking. "Dude...what did you do that for?"

His reply, "I needed it."

According to my uncle he was doing about 130 at the highest point. I probably was doing more like 120 125 tops. Either way, after 100, the world has a way of narrowing down to about a 6 inch square in front of your face.

While that was fun, I never went that fast again. 90, yeah..over a hundred crouched down like a daytona rice burner...nope.

Seats are expensive you know and I'm pretty sure that one was deformed after that..

Kat said...

tone...before I had a license, the only thing my dad would let me drive was his big blue 72 blazer with what seemed to be three foot high mudders. That was before "monster" trucks and cars. We drove it around the construction sites my dad would pull security for. That was fun.

One of my other memories was driving in the snow in the Firebird. Posi-tran is good in the snow. But we would go down to the mall parking lot at about midnight when it hadn't been plowed yet and do donuts watching a wave of snow fly in the air. Of course, as an adult I realize I was stupid and could have creamed it on a parking light in the lot, but it was fun.

A triumph, huh? New or used?

Kat said...

Donal...that is funny about the cow tipping. All these people were swearing it was something they heard about from people in the country. I was still saying, "Um...they were pulling your leg. Nobody gets in a field with a bunch of cows and tries to tip them over. they're 900 lb or bigger. Plus, you don't know if the rancher has his bull out there."

Of course, these same people really had no idea how to tell a bull from a cow I think. you know, it's the one with the big..er..you know...horns. LOL

OMG, I went to a county fair up there and I am walking with my friends through the award winning animal section behind this man and this woman in their khaki shorts and polos. There are two of every kind in the cages, one male one female. She looks at the mallard ducks and says, "oh, look, is that a goose? What kind of bird is that?" I don't say anything but pause behind them in the narrow walkway while he bends down and reads the tag. "Why does one have all the pretty colors and the other one doesn't if they are the same kind of duck?" I still say nothing and the guy shrugs and walks on with her.

Now they are looking in a pen with a ram and a ewe. "Oh, look, sheep. Which one is the male and which one is the female." Can you feel my eyes rolling? I mean, serioiusly, these people are so underexposed that they have no idea which gender might carry a set of horns in the animal world. National Geographic anyone? Stop watching Days of our Lives for the love of God.

They walk on and now we are in front of a whole line of chickens. One hen and one rooster in every cage. Some pretty cool breeds, too. She's exclaiming over their pretty colors and they finally get to the last ones which are your basic leghorn variety. White with red markings. The rooster has the classic big red comb and craw and the hen has the little red craw with no comb. Just like in those stupid bugs bunny cartoons.

I mean, who hasn't seen a bugs bunny cartoon where foghorn leghorn, a ROOSTER, is walking around tormenting the dog and this rooster in the cage looks just like him. She says, "Which one do you think is the male?"

Finally, I can't take it anymore so I step up beside them and point out the red comb and craw and say, "You know, like foghorn leghorn?" and she says, "OOOhhh...he was a rooster?"

Ok...why are stupid people allowed to walk on this earth?

Now, for the intimidation factor...you are probably right. One of my cousin's friends from the force (he followed my dad) was getting married and we were at the reception. the groom is drunk as hell and we are all on the dance floor acting stupid and all of a sudden this guy puts his arm around me in that very drunken way, with his stinky jack daniels breath in my face and says, "You know...I hath a cruthsh on you." could have knocked me over with a feather. then he says, "But..I knew Loui (cousin) an your daddthh woulth beath the crapfff outh offf me if I askth you outhh."

Um..flattering but not flattering particularly as the drunken bride seemed to be getting all upset, so I gave him a shove towards Loui paid my respects to the parents and hustled it out of their.

Next week the guy is all embarrased and apologizing up and down (probably because the bride gave him an earful when he was sober), embarrassing the hell out of me all over again and then he ends with, "besides, I always thought you had a boyfriend."

Just about fell over on the spot. I think my problem maybe that I'm just a little obtuse. My brother says that guys like to have encouragement. Well, when your oblivious to the fact that they might even like you, it's hard to figure out who you should be encouraging. LOL

On that note, I started to write something in an email and I might post it here as it started getting funny so it sounded like a blog post.

Jason Rubenstein said...

Either a new or used Triumph.. it depends on what I find out here. CA is awesome for motorcycles, and Pacific Coast Highway was *made* for motorcycles. I have to watch it, as I barely know what I am doing on one and am taking the training course after the NewYear. Love English bikes.. lets hope all the parts stay attached when I get it over 50mph.

I grew up in the city, fergawdsakes, and I know a rooster from a chicken, and so on and so forth!! Sheesh. Maybe because Chicago is such an ag/urban city and they're conscious about being in the middle of miswestern farmland, and the whole 'Hog butcher to the world' thing and such. But, c'mon.. I saw corn on an actual cornstalk beore I was 6, and we lived in the city! Not a suburb, but In. The. City. Some people, I swear. . .


Donuts in the show!! Hell yeah.. a kid in my class had a Olds Cutlass, and that thing did some awesome snow-tricks. The driver woudl also do a "Rockford" in the school parking lot, sliding the car 180* with the handbrake.

I had a 1971 VW beetle, painted caution-stipe yellow. An awful color for a car, and it didn't do donuts. That damn thing drove like a slot-car. Hell, it was the size of a slot-car, so whaddya want? I would go off-road in it, just because It Could Not Get Stuck.

My next car was a Jeep Wrangler. Ya think?

Tom the Redhunter said...

Another great piece of writing from one of my favorite bloggers. I had to look up Pinky Tuscadaro, as I'm a bit behind on my "Happy Days" trivia but I did catch the reference to "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at your description of Tim Curry. I was in college when that one came out. Yeah, it was a bit much for me too, innocent youngster that I was.

I haven't had a chance to check out your fiction yet but will.

Tom the Redhunter said...

Oh, and silly me, I thought your post was going to be about Thanksgiving Day.