7/10/08

I have been dreading this coming weekend all week. Gregg wanted me to go with him to Kansas City to drop off the Mustang we sold on e-Bay some months ago. I didn’t want to go but couldn’t really come up with a reason not to. Fortunately, I got the call this morning that the shipping company finally got their trucks out of the swollen Mississippi river and are in town to pick it up. Woo hoo! This affords me the opportunity to continue helping Jesse with Barbara. I may go behind Kevin’s back and take it upon myself to help the kid get the zorst put on the car. Sure, it might cost me a hundred bucks or so but the car will be that much more bitchin’. Then again, I might fund the 185/60-14 tires so he can get the wheels on it. That would put the kid about $400.00 in the hole to me though. Hmm, I guess it would be easier to write off the cost of the zorst if I never hear from him again. I need to get my number in his phone so I can have “right of first refusal” when he decides to sell that car. Did I mention I'm jealous as hell that he has it up and running again? Well, I am. By the way, some say that “I am” is the shortest sentence possible in the English language. I disagree. I say that the command “Go!” is the shortest. With the understood “you” not written or said, the sentence is not only shorter by one word, it is shorter by one letter as well. It is also a really good pre-Tom-Cruise-taint Katie Holmes movie. Too bad she had to hook up with that psycho little munchkin. But I digress. Back to Jesse and Barbara, supposedly he was to get license and insurance for it yesterday. I think the plan is to try and get the inspection done Saturday. Perhaps I'll take him to see my muffler guy when that’s done. We’ll see. Did I mention the motorcycle I'm thinking about buying? Well, I have wanted a BMW flat-twin bike ever since the first time I saw a Paris-Dakar K-1000, or whatever the number is. I got to ride one once and I really liked it. So a few years ago when Ray showed up at the Ranch with a 1984 R-650, I was in lust. I've been drooling over that bike every time I go visit him. This last time he caught me. I said, “I have wanted this bike since the day you brought it in here.” “Really?” he said. “Then let’s consider it yours.” We came up with a price and now I need to finger out how I'm going to pay for it. Oh, I'm also going to have to buy a casket for myself in accordance with the agreement I have with mom. Perhaps it is the “Closet Goth” in me but I think it is kind of cool to own my own casket. Perhaps I'll buy a headstone as well. It would be the only way I could get the… um, what are the words on a headstone called again? Not “eulogy,” um… crap. Well anyhoo, it is the only way I could get my headstone to say, “He filled a much needed void in our lives. We are better for having lost him.” I'm sure none of my family or friends would do that for me after the fact. Of course there’s no saying whether or not they’d allow it to be used either, now that I think about it. Well, I won’t care. I'll be dead. Epitaph! That’s what Juan carves on a headstone. Ok, I'll be perfectly honest here; it didn’t just pop into my head. I looked it up on Wikipedia. Of course had it popped into my head, I would have misspelled it. I always thought it was “epitath” not “epitaph.” I still pronounce it wrong. Go figure. Anyhoo, so yeah, I'm thinking about buying this motorcycle from Ray. My biggest concern is the rarity of the thing. It is one of the first Café type bikes, sort of a pre-crotch-rocket. Back when a sport bike was an upright cruiser with a subtle fairing and some other bodywork. Dang, I'm getting excited about it again. Oh, and being only a 650 cc, it isn't going to be rolling down the freeway at 70 mph at 10% throttle. Well, at least I don’t think it will. The speedometer only goes to like 90, which is way faster than… ok, if I finish that sentence it would be a lie. I'm the kind of person who will test the limits at least once. Some Sunday afternoon I'll take the thing out FM5 to Hwy 171 and open her up. Or I'll do it on that long stretch of I-20 between the I-30 split and the Loop 820 merge. I know me. It’ll happen. Hopefully it won’t be the day I get to cash in on the purchase of the casket and headstone, but Juan never knows. Something is going to kill me someday, and it’ll probably be something with an engine. Ok, it’ll probably be because I did something stupid with something with an engine. I'm not above admitting that. I'm not the guy who says, “Oh, I can drive my way out of any situation.” Yeah, sometimes you just can’t. Look at Ayrton Senna, or Dale Earnhart, or Colin McRae, or any of the myriad other professional drivers who didn’t drive out of it. Things go wrong. That’s just the way it is. I know some wag is going to point out that McRae died in a helicopter crash, but he was still trained enough to have a pilot’s license and probably as much experience doing that as most of us have driving at “ass killing speed.” Ok, I probably sound like George there with that non sequitur argument. It makes sense to me. So, where was I? Oh right, something stupid with something with an engine is probably going to be the death of me. Well, as the great Super Chicken was wont to say, “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.” Look it up, and “go grease wheezer” while you’re at it.