The Fat Boy

Oh gosh, I finally rode the motorcycle!

A little over three years ago, January of 2004, My husband came with a brand new Harley Davidson motorcycle. "Look what I got us honey!"

I was irate! $18K for a motorcycle we didn't need or have the money for. "Oh but we do have the money for it," says hubby. "I took money out of savings to pay off the truck so that I could downgrade the insurance from full coverage to the minimum liability so now we still have close to the same payment." I'm sure it all broke even in his mind but I didn't think we needed such a risky toy and I couldn't help but notice it came with but one helmet. What happened to "us"?

But that was ok. Hubby went out and got himself a toy for spending his free time, Carol went out and found herself a new pastime as well (but that's a story unsuitable for this "G" rated blog).

I didn't say much at the time about the motorcycle but a couple of months later hubby and I got into one of those silly arguments that I can't even remember how it started but it eventually circled around to, "Oh yeah, well you get nuts everytime I spend $100 on groceries and stuff at the store. You are constantly fussing at me that we don't have any money to spend so don't write any checks. Then you come home with a new motorcycle (and not a cheap one either it had to be the best) without even discussing it with me?"

Hubby's defense, "Well, I wanted it."

I screamed, "Well I'm tired of that Mustang. There's no room in the trunk even for a couple of suitcases so we can't go anywhere and no one can sit in the back seat, no one with legs anyway. I've really wanted a new Escape for sometime now but you don't see me running out and buying one."

Which led back to a previous argument that everything we own, the children's cars, his truck, my Mustang, his Mustang, and now this motorcycle is in his name. Everything except the house. If something should happen to him, say he splattered his brains all over the highway riding that donorcycle, the rest of the family would be in quite a nasty financial state for quite some time.

The next day hubby called me from the Ford dealership, "What color did you say you wanted?" A few minutes later Rick brought home a brand new green Escape along with the sales lady carrying the paperwork for me to put it in my name. He's so good, sometimes. I was delighted with the Escape but I sent the sales lady back.

Three years four months later, on a Friday afternoon in early May, hubby comes home from work, sits down and announces to me and the girls that he's in love with a Fat Boy. Laura and Sarah did not know that a Fat Boy was a Harley-Davidson rather than an obese homosexual. Both announced that they needed to leave. Ha ha silly girls.

The next morning while I was otherwise disposed or more accurately, elsewhere indisposed, hubby zipped up to the H-D dealership and traded his bike for a pearl white Fat Boy. When I returned (make-up smeared, hair slightly askew) hubby was grinning from ear to ear next to his new toy.

Memorial Day weekend hubby asked me to ride out to the cemetary with him on the motorcycle. Somewhere over the course of the last couple of years we had aquired a second helmet and Rick had just finished installing a passenger backrest so I reluctantly agreed. It was but ten miles or so. I could handle it I guessed.

Barely. I could barely handle it. I had forgotten my fear of speed, skin, and asphalt. WHen I was 14 or 15 I took my trusty little skateboard to Joe Wheeler State PArk. I proceeded to ride from the golf course entrance all the way down a steep slope curving sharply to the right. It was probably a nutty endeavor from the get go but I was doing well until a motorcycle came suddenly around the curve and honked. I found myself face down on the concrete with my shirt slightly torn, my bra slightly torn, and my airbags skinned as well. Riding on the motorcycle, especially when looking down at the pavement blurring beneath, reminded me too much of that fall. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and held on for dear life!