The Tragedy of TAS

*** continued from previous post ***


Mom and I obediently took our seats. The bike has great seats, but the cushions on the chairs felt like heaven. As you know, I suffer from TAS. That's right I said it. I have ‘Tiny Ass Syndrome’ wherein - well to be blunt - I have no ass. So as I'm sure you'll understand the cushions were nirvana to my tush.

Leeza poured water into the tumblers on the table. "Cook has your plates warming. Can I start you off with a drink?"

As you know, your mom doesn't drink. I believe it to be a character flaw, but that's beside the point. However, for the briefest of moments I saw her contemplating takin' to the bottle. This would be bad. You have no idea how hard it is to try and ride with a drunk on the back of your bike. Don't ask me how I know this, just trust me when I say they have a tendency to fall off at the worst times, and if they survive they get all lippy.

"Water will be fine for me," Mom says, saving her journey into alcoholism for another day.
Leeza looks at me and raises her eyebrows. What I want is a keg of Guiness. Make that 2 kegs of Guiness with a fifth of Glenlivet as a chaser. What I settle for is a cup of coffee.

Alcohol, for me anymore, is much more enjoyable as a concept rather than an actual consumable. Much like when you're sitting around with your friends and you say, "Hey, you know what would be fun? We should all just take off for the mountains this weekend. We could rent a cabin, each one of us could be responsible for a meal, we could play board games and strum guitars and talk about the meaning of life. What say you?" And everyone agrees that that is EXACTLY what you should all do but each one of you is thinking "But first, I'll need a bullet to the brain."

Without further ado Leeza disappears back into the kitchen.

Mom and I sit in silence. Reflecting.

Protip: That's never good.

I'm sure in the light of day the view from the dining room is wonderful. Everything in Canada is wonderful. Every-Frackin'-Thing. But in the darkness, all we could see was our own reflections. How's that for symbolism?

We sat there, in silence, and the statue in the corner coughed, then walked into the library. I nearly jumped out of my skin. What would animate a statue like that? There was dark, dark magic afloat here, no doubt about it. I would need to be wary.
After a few minutes Leeza returns with my coffee, two salads that look like they've stepped off the staging table at the Food Network's 'Let's-Compete-For-The-Most-Ostentatious-Salad-EVER-And-Be-Sure-To-Use-A-Live-Badger!' competition, and a generous portion of what we discover is freshly-baked honey-wheat bread.

*** the journey continues ***

I'm not promoting drinking, BUT . . .

*** continued from previous post  ***


Mom immediately wanted to pull over and kill the nice young lady. I felt it was too early in the trip for assault, plenty of time for that later. So I hit the throttle. The truck behind us followed suit. We were now cruising a good 10 mph over the posted speed limit. (Shhhh. . .don't tell the boys in blue.) Then it hit me; it was then I realized the girl behind us was an "obstacle driver". What is that you may ask? Why an 'obstacle driver' is a person that gets on the road, and drives until they encounter another car. That car then becomes an "obstacle" for them. You are in their way. If you pull over, or wave them around you, they will drive up and tailgate the next car in line. We are all just window dressing to their lives. We are all obstacles to their goals.

Which didn't matter to me - I couldn't care less about her day-to-day habits. Right now she was tailgating and putting our lives at risk. Mom was twisting in her seat, turning around and giving her the 'stink eye'. Your Mother's 'stink-eye' normally causes strong men to crumble like greasy street-punks on the witness stand. There was a problem here though, the girl would have had to been paying attention to SEE the stink-eye.

Mom leaned forward and shouted, "I'm going to throw pennies at her windshield in about 2 seconds!"

You know your Mom. She would do it. I suppose I should have found some joy in that she wanted to throw pennies instead of spark plugs. Or a chair. But I didn't. It's a wonder I've kept her out of prison as long as I have.

"No you're not," I said, with what I hoped was an appropriate amount of authority in my voice.

"She's going to run into the back of us! She can't be more than 3 feet away!"

I looked for a place to pull over, but the Washington State Department of Transportation, in their far-sighted wisdom, had decided that the shoulders of the road were terribly, terribly passe', and replaced them with a bare six inches of tarmac and huge guard rails. Really huge. Really huge and really shiny guard rails that screamed 'Don't touch me our I will fudge you up!'. So I couldn't have pulled over had I wanted. And, as the hip-cats on the Netz say, do want! There was simply no where to go even if I found that we had spontaneously combusted and figured it was a fine time for a wienie roast.

I was fast running out of options. Speeding up hadn't helped. There were no side roads on this stretch of highway, nothing but aforementioned wavy strips of aluminum death.

What to do? Well, I did the only thing I could do - I became drunk.

I've hinted at the maneuverability of the Vision, buy you have no idea. You can swerve and swoop the beast like a fighter jet, and snap her back in a straight line before you can say . . . you can say. . . well, something very short and very witty. So that's what I did. I sped up, and began to weave my baby around in the lane, then slowed, sped up, weaved. Sort of like the directions on a bottle of shampoo. Weave. Speed. Repeat. It wasn't dangerous, but it LOOKED dangerous and that was the point. Oddly enough, the girl backed off. Way off. Mission accomplished. No doubt she was now dialing 911, reporting the 'dangerous maniac' on the bike. I hoped so. Those field tests on a cane are a hoot.

"Thank you," Mom said as she leaned forward with her face-shield raised.

"No problem sweetie," I replied craning my neck but keeping my eyes on the road.

*** the journey continues tomorrow