The Thunderstorm
So there I was, out riding.
I had a job driving a school bus, but it was summertime and that meant I got to sleep late every day and go riding. It was a weird job, but it was pretty handy because you get the whole summer off. Because it is a seasonal job with a known recall date, you don't even have to make believe you are looking for work while you collect unemployment. I mean, really...how many jobs are there where you get to drive around in someone else's vehicle, burning someone else's fuel, listening to someone else's radio AND get paid for it? Sure, you need to deal with the kids, but that can be a good thing because you get the added bonus of screaming SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!!! if you are having a shitty day. Doing that in an office gets you fired.
To make a long story short, I only had to work 180 days a year and got to fuck off and ride to the beach all summer. Sometimes the company would call me in to drive for summercamp field trips and I'd drive the bus to the beach full of kids. Since the beach was an hour away and the kids kept their lunchboxes and shit on the bus, I would stay there all day, on the clock. That means I got PAID to go to the beach and look at chicks.
Anyway, back to the story...I was out riding in the middle of the week. The sky got dark and the air got cold so I pulled over to put on my leather jacket instead of my BDU jacket. It was just starting to rain, so I also hauled out my Red Baron looking EMGO goggles. Shortly after getting back in the saddle, the sky got really ugly and it started to pour. It had all come on pretty fast, so I assumed it would leave just as quickly.
A downpour is the perfect time to stop for lunch, preferably somewhere indoors. Since I knew the road I was on, I remembered that a mile or so down the road was an old fashioned snack bar like we used to have all over the place in New England. The place was run by a family since the 1950's and was never updated since then, so going there is like stepping back in time to an era when cars had fins and a big family adventure meant going to the drive in or out to the snack bar for some sort of fried food that was served in little red and white striped cardboard boxes that folded shut on top.
The interior was lined with varnished knotty pine boards, probably put there by the proprietor himself 20 years before I was born. There are still a few places around like that if you know where to look. Inside were wooden picnic tables to sit at, outside was a yellowish neon light that was once all the rage because people thought yellow wouldn't attract bugs.
To me, out riding in a hellacious downpour thunderstorm, the snack bar meant a place to dry off my face, take a piss and get something to eat while the storm passed. To others, it was a place to dash out of work at lunch hour and get eat lunch where you didn't have to lay eyes on the boss for nearly a whole hour.
So I roll up on my machine and park it out front. My left boot went "squish, squish, squish" as I walked because my bike leaked oil on the left side and really waterproofed the leather, so when it filled with water from the top in a downpour, it wasn't able to drain out. Yeah, that meant one black boot and one still in it's regular brown color, but I didn't care. With all of the water, my quilted heavy leather highway jacket from the 1970's weighed double what it normally does and it is normally a heavy sonofabitch. Water was running off of my half-helmet.
Once inside, I headed to the men's room to take a leak and regarded the soggy critter that looked back at me from the mirror. Even I had to laugh at the spectacle. My beard and hair were plastered to me, water was dripping from every high spot. Shit, I've fallen out of boats and not gotten that wet.
Out at the counter, I ordered a chicken finger basket, then took my food over to a table by the window to watch the storm and look at my bike. Leaving it outside in a thunderstorm was almost like washing it, right? There was quite a lightshow going on in the summer sky and it lit up the chrome. The bike was 15 years old then, it was an outside dog. I had bought it for a grand for some basic transportation. It had it's share of rust here and there and sported homemade camouflage saddlebags made by sewing a leather strap between two East German surplus rucksacks. Her name was Sue.
As I finished my food, the rain backed off and the sky started to lighten again. All throughout the meal, I was aware that people were staring at me in disbelief and amusement. Between my soaking wet bike and soaking wet me, complete with deep fried chicken batter crumbs in my beard, I must have looked like something out of a bad post-apocalyptic movie.
The gainfully employed lunch-break crowd was finishing up their meal and getting ready to go back to the grind as I stood near the doorway and shook the water out of my sticker-covered helmet before putting it on. One of them worked up the courage to speak to the decrepit wild animal looking creature in the leather jacket and said to me: "Not a very good day for riding, huh?"
I pondered this for a moment and replied "Nah, EVERY day is a good day for riding...but sometimes you get very wet".
Then I went out to my machine and rode off into the weakening storm, glad that I was only getting wet and risking getting struck by lightning instead of going to some mindless dead end job like the poor bastards that were getting into their cages that were parked outside the snack bar.
Jokes (Coming soon)