First Up: Fishwife Bueller's Day Off

FISHWIFE BUELLER'S DAY OFF

Once upon a time, long, long ago:

So. It's an exciting thing: Eric Buell is coming to California for a "limited edition" ride! Fucking Who? Fucking What? Eric Buell is a motorcycle racer/designer. He worked for Harley Davidson R&D for years, was a hotshot racer in a certain category of motorcycles (I am going to guess the 1500 cc class). Then, he went off on his own to develop his own Super 1500cc bike under his own label. Did really well. Then motorcycling decided for no reason to "cancel" the 1500cc category. Perhaps forever. I don't know. That's too much techno "boy stuff" for me to care about/remember. But Harley still likes Eric and invited him back to continue making his kind of bike funded by Harley but with "Buell" as the motorcycle model name. The Pansys, one of them being an actual real boy, were intrigued. Especially by the unprecedented opportunity to go to your local Harley dealership and you can test ride a Buell. Wow! We were already on Harley #3 by then so our dealer naturally has no issues with US test riding the Buell. Pansy, mother extraordinaire whose credo has and will always be "I have children to live for", took that little bad boy out and sped at horridly unsafe speeds all over the delta roads, lowlying foothill roads and such. I mean she was SPEEDING. Mr. Pansy did, too. We bought a Buell. With the usual caveat: if you foolishly crash this bike and don't get killed I will kill you for foolishly crashing. Naturally, this purchase led to many "fights" over who got to ride the Buell on each motorcycle ride thereafter. We eventually agreed to switch off, several times, during each ride. An attorney at my job saw it and excitedly asked me what all we had done to the bike to customize it. I said "we took it out of the box and put gasoline in it." It was hot looking and "hot" but only in a Harley way. Suzukis, Hondas, etc. of course are WAY faster, more sophisticated, etc. but this is a Harley.

Anyway, then comes news that Eric Buell is doing a nationwide tour to promote his bike and there is going to be a Ride With Eric in the Santa Cruz mountains. Something like only 5 rides nationwide are being set up. And each one will be limited to the first 100 Buell owners to sign up. I excitedly call the phone number at the crack of dawn and some fool actually sleepily answers the phone. I screech that we must sign up but that we only have 1 Buell between us plus Road Kings and can the Road King come along since we switch off the Buell? They hem and haw and finally say "okay." YES! I arrange for marathon babysitters since even with my perfect children the teenage babysitters will burn out after too many hours and we are going to be gone from before dawn until long after dark. 3 babysitters (!!!) are scheduled, prepaid, with contact telephone numbers between them all and backups for unforseen emergencies.

Finally, at long last, Ride Day arrives. I am up, scampering around getting into my best clothes and Mr. Pansy......Mr. Pansy finally drags his stupid ass self to the toilet and announces, while rubbing his lower abdomen in a disgusting manner, "I am sick." SICK? Fucking Sick? On MY day of Riding With Eric? After all the babysitter arrangements? After all my wardrobe hysterics? SICK? I go through a Salvador Dali mind meltdown and declare "I am getting the babysitter anyway since she's already paid for." I pick her up since Mr. Pansy is "too sick" to care for the children anyway and then tell him I am going to go the Harley store to "see" if anyone is there to ride down with. I get on the BUELL and go to the store. Of course, no one is there but I am not wasting my efforts to Ride With Eric just because Mr. Pansy is fucking ass SICK. So I come home, tell him I am heading down to Santa Cruz and wish him a nice day. He is too weakened to protest very much. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. The BUELL was too noisy as I roared off for me to hear him.

As I race down to Santa Cruz (nervous that I might miss the start up at 9am) various bikers come onto the freeway and ride "with me" but they all exited before my turnoff so I am basically alone all the way down to Santa Cruz. Which was odd since on the way to most motorcycle rides you hook up with riders as you go along. That makes me nervouser. I stopped once for gas to make sure I was fueled and ready before I got there. A bunch of guys are at the gas station but none of them are going to the Buell thing. They are just on ratty old hogs. But they decide to escort me anyway. Yeh. Right. If they had "other" plans the blazing look in my eyes when I said there was no way and nothing getting in my way of Riding With Eric put a cold chill into their hearts/loins. They stop at some greasy spoon and want me to join them but I say No, I got Eric waiting for me. And I roar off. A lot like that chick on the e-insurance ads. I finally get to the Santa Cruz meeting spot. No one is there! I try not to freak out. I then realize I am.....Oh only a fucking 1-1/2 hours early! I guess my "don't be late" plan worked like a charm. Eventually people start showing up. After awhile something becomes exceedingly obvious to me: can you imagine Pansy not having realized what she has signed up for? I mean, Really. What was I thinking?! Buells are crotch rockets. Who buys crotch rockets? BOYS. Yes. I am fucking the only fucking female in the fucking crowd of 100 BOYS and their fucking Buells. Oh, I was fucking over the moon!

Finally, I find the owner and a couple muckitymucks from my local Harley dealership there with their Buells. I tear into them when I learn they TRAILERED their bikes down there the day before and had stayed at a bed-n-breakfast. I screech that I had to ride alone. And that I can smell the fucking quiche on their breath across the fucking parking lot. I loudly declare them to be trailer trash to the crowd. I shred them mercilessly. What fucking punks!

Then I become cognizant that the groups I am standing nearest are: on my left the Christian Motorcycle Club and on my right (hand to heart, swear on a Bible) real honest-to-God colors-wearing Live Hells Angels. I bust out laughing and introduce myself to them all as "fishwife" (it's in silver letters like cowboys wear on their belts but mine are across the back of my leather jacket) and that my race name is "ohgoditsmom" and that this is just too fine: here I am....MOM halfway between Heaven and Hell! And, since the Hell's Angels----every fucking one of them---were extremely Pretty Boys, young, virile, muscular, totally under the radar with their snappy hairdos, etc. I declare them to be just a buncha puppies and demand to know where the fuck the Real Hell's Angels are. And the entire 100-person crowd quickly divvies up into groups of: "hate her" "scared of her" "maybe like her but still scared". Why does no one ever give a little credit for "wild adrenalin-crazed woman" around me? We get the pre-ride chitchat from the organizers including meeting Eric Buell and then line up, self-seeding. Like in races, big rides, etc. less experienced participants go to the rear. I am no fool. I get in the back. Those fucking two-faced Christians were directly ahead of me but then pulled up a few groups' worth of spots to get away from me. Directly behind me are the Hell's Angels because they are too cool for the room. And they back off a tad. Way behind them are the sag trucks. And we are all OFF!

We had been warned about decreasing radius hairpin turns and to really take them easy. I am doing okay but eventually, even though I was being Careful, I actually find myself going too hot into a turn and I am headed for high-side crash. Really. Quickly gulping air and setting my jaw so I don't bite my tongue off when I crash I force myself to squeeze the tank with my lithe, muscular, feminine, smooth thighs and lean way into the curve and ride like a boy. I live through it! But in the lack-of-practice way of all greenhorns I let off the clutch a bit too fast and peeled out and squeal up the road to the top of that particular climb. The tires squealed, not me. I was quite cotton-mouthed. I pull off to the side of the road to wait for some of the adrenalin puke to go back down my gullet and take a swig of water and just generally try not to black out. The entire herd of Hell's Angels also pulls over and get off their bikes and swarm me saying "that was hot." "you can really ride." "wow." Seriously. I laugh even more and explain that I am just about passing out. Then I demanded to know why they fucking disrespect their elders so fucking much.....stealing their grandpa's colors while he was passed out and all. They laugh and laugh and, of course, adopt me. We rode together the rest of the day and stopped at the rest stops and had lunch together. They also became my paparazzi. At the rest stops they were just dreadful....slamming down Sports fucking Drinks. I swore ferociously at them, loudly of course, about how they were destroying decades' worth of Hell's Angel rep and to stop that. More yuks. Crowd stares from a safe distance. At one rest stop it was so warm all the boys were tearing off their clothes so they can ride in their wife-beaters (some went topless entirely) and I chide them, all motherly-like: "you're gonna be fucking freezing in 12 miles and don't come whining to me that your nipples are all chapped and crap like that." And, yes, 12-15 miles later they all, to a nipply-man, stopped and dressed again. I did not try very hard to stay out of their faces at that rest stop. They loved it. You know they did.

The ride was organized like a bicycle century ride: arrows pointing where to turn on the course, etc. And it was kinda tricky except for a serious cyclist like myself who knows those tricks. The goal for every rider was to get as close to the actual ride route mileage as possible and you get a prize. And there were other prizes for other categories but we did not know what those categories were.

During the ride I change clothes several times. Which is fucking hard to do on a bike with no saddlebags beyond a tiny little windshield bag and a miniature storage space under the saddle. I had about 5 t-shirts on. First one was "Fish Hard, Die Free" with a big skeleton-fish on a chopper (me); second one was a Road King "Gotta Have One" (me); third one was "Nobody's Old Lady" long-haired woman on a big hog bike (me); fourth one was my all-time favorite "Hello Boys" in silver letters (really me even though I am 1000% monogamous); and the last one was a bathing suit that has dozens of small neon-colored fish all over it (me except I prefer red). And I had a pink glitter Barbie tutu which I only wore with the bathing suit "finale". I changed clothes every 25 miles.

Now, I need my calories when I am hyped on adrenalin.....which you surely realize I was off the adren-o-meter this day what with all those boys and Angels. And, I had paid for two lunches. So I hogged down my lunch (lumberjack size meal for Manly Buell Riders) PLUS I then loudly demanded Mr. Pansy's lunch as well. They were actually "thinking it over" until they realized "Duh. It's paid for. Just give it to her, maybe she'll shut up. Or talk more and louder." I vacuumed that lunch down, too. And needed a couple more drinks as well. People began to watch me and make bets. I think. A half-hour after I have eaten, in rolls my local Harley dealership homies. They had gotten lost, one had crashed, they were bummed. I lit into them but good at which the crowd then divvied up into: "totally scared of her but we can't stop watching this train wreck" and "love her even though she is fucking crazy".

It's now award time. Just plaques for various things like: rider who had closest to correct mileage; rider who rode furthest to attend this gathering; rider with most tricked-out Buell, etc. Eric saves one for "last". I think he did it on purpose. It was "Will Ride For Food". Now, who or how or why this category got thought up, I have no idea. I guess there is always a food hog in every crowd? But there was no question in ANYONE'S mind who the fuck deserved THAT plaque. The crowd is pointing at me and shouting "Her! Her! Her!" Eric spies me, does a double take with the pink tutu/neon pink fish getup and says: "I will give you this plaque. But first, you have got to explain that outfit." Crowd howls and howls and howls.

In one of my More Proud Moments Of Spontaneous Combustion I said:

"Well, Eric. You might not know this, but there isn't a girl alive who didn't want to grow up to become a ......"

wait for it.......wait for it.........can't you guess????



"BUELLERINA. "

The crowd actually rioted and threw food at me, at each other, on Eric, etc. Now I have to fucking pack my trophy and all my clothes for the ride home. But I manage to do so, even over that stuffed porkbelly of mine. The Angels ride with me to make sure I get the right freeways home, even though they have to go out of their way (they were from Oakland). I am ripping home at, well.....a high rate of speed....when suddenly JUST LIKE THEY WARN YOU ABOUT.....a car towing a boat just ahead of me and one lane over to my right had the cowling from the boat's outboard motor blow off and it came rolling and tumbling into MY lane. I touch the brakes with 3 fingers......deliberately disobeying the Factory Recommendation of No More Than 2 Fingers (I'm lying about the 2 fingers)....and that bike slammed down to 90mph in a split second. At least I now knew the brakes are very efficient. Fortunately, the cowling stopped tumbling at the right hand edge of my lane. Because I was in the fast lane and only had a nasty, loose-surfaced meridian as my "out". I guess it is true: speed kills. So I slowed down to 65mph for the rest of the ride home.

By the end of my exciting day I had racked up 500 miles, essentially alone. And made new friends. And had a total blast. I'm just glad I lived through it. Somewhere in Oakland is a Bad Boy with my turquoise scarf. Yeh, and they got Big Red Lipstick smoochies, too.

It was one of only about 3 times I have ever been totally without Mr. Pansy or the kids.

THE REST OF THE STORY:

One of the main organizers of the Buell event told me he made certain to find me toward the end of the event to personally thank me for my attendance and behavior. They had actually been upset when the Angels showed up and weren't quite sure how they were going to handle any "untoward" incidents and yet they couldn't be "uncool" either. And then evidently I shocked the pants off of the organizers since now they knew they were definitely going to have to eventually call in all the authorities and a Life Flight Ambulance. They just didn't know at what hour it was all going to go down. When they saw how clever I was, and still alive, as the day went on (they kept in touch via ham radio the whole time from station to station) and that I could even actually FUCKING RIDE my Buell.....well, I was/am to this day their Personal Hero Queen Idiot. We went to their next Buell ride a year later in Jackson, CA. Mr. Pansy was well that day. Dammit.

The other most precious factoid: you know it is true that men have ego/testosterone/etc. issues. And they do feel the need to compete/compensate with each other via their "toys".....such as Corvetttes, hot machines of any sort, gold chains/bling, crotch rockets, etc. The crowd that day was, to a man....EVERY ONE OF THEM WAS NO TALLER THAN 5'7". Excepting the main ride coordinator, the owner of "my" Harley dealership and ME---the most Manned Up Woman in the universe and you fucking know I am THAT. I was taller than my usual 5'8" since I was wearing my hottest, highest-heeled Tony Lama cowgirl boots that put me at a squidge under 6' tall. My shoutout to the crowd as I roared away to go home was "It's Been A Privilege. Peace out, Pygmies!"

Signed,
Amazon Amongst The Pygmies

p.s. I don't care if Mr. Pansy had the opportunity to also have the Time Of His Life with those 3 babysitters--because I know he didn't. Poor sickly 1000% monogamous baby.