Worst. Ride. Ever.

Death by chocolate. The addiction that holds me most tightly in its grip is chocolate brownies with chocolate chips. My second most gripping addiction is chocolate brownies without chocolate chips. So, when I was told to load up a take-home bag with brownies from the pan, I ended up putting as many brownies with chocolate chips into my face as into the bag. Now, combine a massive brownie, sugar, and chocolate blast with two cups of strong coffee. I'm sure our local meth heads get less of a rush from their drug of choice than the sugar/caffeine explosion this gave me.

As luck would have it, I was on my motorcycle that day and my itinerary included a gravel road not at all on the way home. After wandering into a small logging town, I searched for the rough dirt track. I rode until I reached a forest service gate, dismounted, and drank some water. 

Then it hit. Large rats with sharp claws were skittering along in my intestines, looking for a way out that didn't necessarily have to be the usual path. Now, I am an experienced rider. Thus, I have in my motorcycle tail bag a packet of biodegradable (I’m not a savage) baby wipes for just such occasions. I headed deep into the woods and prepared a nice situation for myself to dispense with that which ailed me. After I felt a little better, I packed out my empty baby wipes package and got ready to go.

But wait! There's more!

The rats were not done with me, and I didn't have time to get back to the slice of heaven I’d just left. So, I scrambled up the hill next to me and got my pants down just in time. Having no baby wipes, I made a discovery: disposable facemasks make damn fine emergency TP. (If you think of it, remove the aluminum strip first. Best you don’t ask why.) As I was concluding my business, I looked up and there in my peripheral vision was a motorcycle. At first, I thought it was stolen, and then I noticed the helmet and backpack placed neatly beside it. Note that I had just desecrated the ground six feet from this bike, and its owner would surely be coming back this way. That's when I heard footsteps. So with all the elegance of Inspector Clouseau, I coyly leaped out of the brush just as he sauntered up the trail. We said hi and I hoped he wasn't curious about why I was slathering on the hand sanitizer. He asked about my bike and I feigned surprise when he spoke of his motorcycle in the woods. I bid him a quick goodbye and told him he should check out the flying squirrels a few hundred feet that way, up the hill, away from where his bike was parked. Then I fired up and got the heck out of there. 

As one would expect, the rats were STILL not done with me. But I knew where there was a fast food place about ten minutes away and I was sure I could make it. 

My mind was in my guts and I was not myself: The fiercely vigilant, responsible rider. I was going too fast for the road and for the limited attention I could give it. That's when the deer jumped in front of me. Those who live in areas with wandering wildlife—which is pretty much anywhere on the American continent—know that if you can't stop in time, you should hit the critter close to perpendicular as you can: try to avoid the glancing blows that send you into the trees alongside the road. Better to go over the obstacle and slide along an expanse not littered with things that will stop you abruptly. And this is why we now wear armor, boys and girls. Taking to the air from a moving motorcycle no longer guarantees skin grafts like it used to when Levi's and a Harley Davidson T-shirt were all one needed to cheat death. Hell, insurance companies will even pay for your damaged protective gear these days.

I have no idea how I did this, but somehow I managed to miss the deer! Some deep muscle memory kicked in, which sounds a lot cooler than the deer deciding not to die, and I got around the damned thing. I was a little jostled but still upright and going down the road. I flipped my visor up to reset my glasses. As if on cue, a wasp flew into my helmet and stung me right under my eye. That smarted a bit so I squished the little bastard with my gloved fingers and tossed its carcass aside. The pain was remarkable. Impressive even.

Meanwhile, the rats.

Once comfortably off the beaten path, I stopped and prised the Benadryl out of my pack and popped one with a smattering of ibuprofen. I've been harpooned enough times by the local entomology to keep a "sting kit" in my bag. (When epi-pens cost less than a California condo, I'll put one in there too.) All this took my mind off my guts for the moment. The thing about Benadryl and me is this: I get about half an hour before the sleepiness makes riding a really bad idea. The GPS said I was 31 minutes from home. I've never pushed that 250cc engine as hard as I did that afternoon. Always on my mind was that this wasp sting could swell one of my eyes shut. Motorcycle riding is best done in stereo vision, so not only was I racing against the drug, I was also racing against the swelling. Let's not forget the evil running around in my innards like a 10-year-old after a double espresso brownie chasing a puppy. (The kid chasing the puppy. Not the brownie. That’s a different kind of brownie.) Never had the last few miles of a trip taken so long. 

I made it home in what was really no time at all and soon had sedated the rats, grabbed a shower, fed myself more ibuprofen, and got two full bites of a peanut butter sandwich in me before passing out in an antihistamine-induced coma. In the morning I was greeted with a puffy face but with very little pain. (Getting the drugs in me as soon as possible after the sting is the key.) When I went rummaging through my jacket for my phone I found the baggie of brownies I had brought home. The heat had not been kind to them. But they were a gift, so by some twisted personal credo, I could not just toss them out. I re-gifted them to the first person with a pulse I ran across, someone who has a much higher tolerance of chocolate than I do. The resemblance of the gooey brown sweetness was not lost on them. ("This better not be poo!") I started to unfurl the tale of how the brownies, with chocolate chips, were a major player in an adventure I’d just had, but stopped. This pulse-barer would likely blanch with disgust and hand them back to me. And I would eat them.

Comments

[mossum]

You are the shit.