Friday, August 12, 2011

Let me Tell You About The Time I Drove a Motorcycle Into an Electric Fence

Okay, so I know the title of the blog is plausible but (almost) entirblah blah blah etcetera hurf durf boof, so in order to make this story sound ever so slightly more believable, let me clarify a few things.

The electric fence was off.
It was a very small motorcycle.
I didn't actually die.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to the legitimately fun stuff.

In Kansas, you are not a real person until you have done several phenomenally stupid things and have enough drunken tales to entertain a small nation. As you can probably tell, I am considered a real person in Kansas. However, I was not always this way. I used to be considered a bit of a bore, believe it or not. The moment I would open my mouth in order to tell somebody about how Popeye the Sailor Man's penchant for spinach was actually due to a missed decimal place in a study about the iron content of said vegetable (which is a true story, by the way) I would get pummeled until I stopped talking.

I'm a pretty stubborn talker, so these beatings would often last for five minutes or so, until I had finished my "fun fact."

Anyway, in an effort to either make me more interesting or kill me (I still have no idea which it was) I was taken out to the shop one day by a fellow four years younger than me and shown his "dirt bike." You may have noticed that I put quotation marks around the term "dirt bike." This is because what he was showing me was, in fact, garbage piled into the rough shape of a two wheeled deathtrap conveyance.

Let me clarify. Instead of a carburetor, this thing had a Folgers coffee can bolted to the frame. The throttle, as I would find out shortly, had two speeds (affectionately and accurately called "stop" and "go") and nothing the rider did would affect which speed the bike would decide to go at any given moment. It did have shocks, but they didn't work. The only way you wouldn't end up dead after sitting on that bike was through an act of God.

I wanted to ride it so bad. I would give anything. I would molest a moose if that is what it would take to get me on that bike and riding.

I didn't have to molest any moose. The kid looked me in the eye and said "want to drive it around?"

I said yes.

He started the thing for me (which involved kicking it in twelve very specific places, turning the handlebars at a difficult angle, and twisting my nipple) and I climbed on. He climbed on behind me, to my surprise, but before I could object, the thing decided it was time to go.

We missed the door by a good three feet, but that was okay, because the wall was pretty thin and easily repaired. I wrestled the thing out onto a nice straight road and punched it. Naturally, punching it didn't do anything, but eventually the planets aligned and the bike picked up some speed. It couldn't have been more than thirty five miles an hour or so, but it felt like we were blasting along at twelve thousand. I could hear the kid behind me shouting directions in my ear, and I tried to follow them as best as I could, but it was like trying to control a dinosaur; loud, terrifying, and chances are we would both be dead in moments.

Eventually, I guided it onto a track that may or may not have been meant for dirt bikes. I did a few laps, got a decent three inches of air, and decided I wanted to explore the countryside for a bit. Or maybe the bike decided that. I can't really remember anymore. What I do remember is hearing the words "You know there's a fence there, right?" from somewhere far behind me. I twisted around and the idiot kid had jumped off the back of the bike and was standing thirty feet back. I twisted forward and saw nothing but open prairie, just before I was clothes lined off the bike and into the dirt by a thin wire which should have sent several thousand volts of electricity through me but didn't, because, somehow, it was off.

The bike roared triumphantly and galloped off into the sunset. I got up, brushed myself off, and the very next time a party happened, I got pummeled significantly less.

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