Honorary Member of the Month

[the chi]

Although we stopped this contest quite some time ago, a recent PM put me in the mood to revive it, at least for this one member. The entry story was entertaining to say the least, but as an added bonus, I am leaving the name off right now, and only entering the story. I'd like to see if someone can guess who this member is just based on the story...

Here we go!

It was a cold fall evening on the graveyard shift. The few employees (myself included) had gone outside to move their vehicles to better parking spaces at the front of the building and to sit and smoke on the benches since it wasn’t allowed indoors. I was warming up my Virago 920 so I could move it closer to the door to allow the quickest possible escape from the hell called work. Another employee was also bringing his vehicle (a T-Bird Turbo Coupe) around to the front parking spaces. This was a car that was only brought out on the weekends and driven minimally. It was washed and waxed with a cloth baby diaper and was the pride and joy of a man who would later end up working for an auto-detailer. As the car rounded the corner in front of me, he opened up the throttle and spun the tires showing-off for the benchwarming crowd. Of course, I thought, “I can do that!”.
I pulled my bike into the lane and straightened it up for a massive burnout. It should be mentioned that I was riding on Cheng Shin tires that would easily spin when cold just by applying a little throttle in first. A burnout would be easy from a standing start! I revved the bike several times then pinned the throttle and popped the clutch! As the front tire began its instant ascent to a vertical position, I had several milliseconds to think of an appropriate battle-cry that would fit the dramatic moment unfolding before everyone’s eyes. I chose the most-appropriate cry of “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AA!” I’m pretty sure everyone was impressed with my vocabulary at that point and also with my near vertical position.
Now, I have never been able to ride a wheelie neither on a bicycle or motorcycle. However, the bike insisted I come along for the ride. So, through the grace of God and the incredible power of my sphincter, I decided to see where the bike would take me on it’s journey.
The bike shot down the parking lot which was simply the road in front of the building with spaces on the left for parking and benches on the right for people which were protected by a curb that ran the length of the building. I of course was deep in thought as to what was the proper thing to do at this time. The first thing I thought of was to stop my battle-cry before it scared some of our younger and female employees. Having done that, I turned my attention to the task of reintroducing the front tire to the ground. The most obvious choice was to twist the throttle the opposite direction. This seemed easy enough except for the fact that my previously mentioned incredible sphincter power would not allow me to move forward enough to do so. So, I said “Ass, would you mind letting go of the seat long enough for me to let the throttle off a little bit?”. My ass replied, “I’m afraid if I do, we’re going to make an awful mess here!”. I said, “We’re just going to have to take that chance as we are going to run out of room soon!”. My buttocks agreed and released the seat but, luckily not their contents!
I proceeded to release my death-grip on the throttle and the front end came back to earth where it belonged. At the same time, I felt the rush of relief from surviving my wheelie, the T-bird was backing into a parking space and was blocking the lane except for a 2-3 foot space between it’s front bumper and the curb which was right in front of the benches people were sitting on. I had two choices:

One. I could try to fit through the space between the car and curb and pray I didn’t accidentally hit anyone or:

Two. Try to slow down as much as possible in the few feet I had left and just hope I don’t die when I hit the car.

I chose “two”. I locked up the back brake (I probably could have stopped in time now but, back then I really hadn’t put much effort into improving my braking skills) and slid broadside into the front fender of the car. I held on to the bike with my right hand and hit the hood with my other to keep from flying over it. I didn’t drop the bike and after the impact, the car stopped and I was able to move the bike away from the car. My leg was on the peg and between the bike and car when I hit but, was miraculously unharmed. The car suffered severe injuries however. The front fender was crushed and the inner fender as well. The hood had a hand-shaped dent that buckled it. The door had been dented in by the tail of the bike and the bumper was bent in against the fender. The bike had a dent on the front fender about the size of a silver dollar. I sustained no injuries whatsoever. How, I don’t know. My co-worker jumped out of the car and asked if I was alright. When he had been assured I was alright, he proceeded to berate me and my riding abilities with an unbelievable barrage of obscenities which were mostly accurate.

I had no insurance of any kind.

The only way I could get the money to pay for the repairs was to add on to the loan I had received to pay for the bike at Commercial Credit. Up until then, I had no debt except for the $2000 that I owed on the bike and that would be paid of in a few months since I was making large payments every month. The interest on this loan was 27.5%! That is not a typo. I borrowed the extra money and fixed the car. I was lucky he was a good enough friend that he didn’t call the police so there was no record of this and my license was not harmed. The result of this moment in my life that lasted all of 3-4 seconds was a debt that took me 10 years to pay off and kept me on the edge of starvation the entire time and a reputation that still haunts me occasionally at work with those who remember that night. The cause of this event was simple. EGO! I wanted to show-off and impress people. I definitely impressed them! My favorite comment though was “Ya know, that was a pretty nice wheelie right up until that T-bird!”. The moral: Use your head! A few seconds of stupid behavior can ruin your life for years to come!