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Thursday, July 29, 2010

It Happened on a Motorcycle

It's Thursday and you know what that means! Writing assignment from Mama Kat!

I picked ...drum roll please!

4.) It happened on a motorcycle. 

Wait, how did you guess that? What? I put it in the title? oh...yeah.





 When I was a normal, hormonal, geeky fifteen year old, I had been living in California all of two years. I'd been ripped from the arms of my boyfriend when we'd moved from El Paso, Texas.

It took me exactly one summer to get over losing him that way. I swear to you, we would be married today if my dad hadn't been transferred by his company. We were 13 and in love. What?

That's another story for another day.

I wasn't a knockout, but I was petite and cute. I didn't exactly care to be anymore than that, because I had no trouble attracting boys. I just didn't attract the football team type boys. I attracted the Drama and Glee club type boys. I love Glee, You?

Plus I attracted every geeky gay boy in my school. Not in that way...but in the "you seem like a nice person, so can we go shopping?", sort of way. My very best friend in grade school and high school was a gay guy. I had friends that were girls too, I wasn't particular about gender...if you were fun, I was your friend. If you weren't fun, what was wrong with you?

I had a friend (girl), who lived next door to me in our first California house my dad had rented until we could find a house to buy, and we'd remained friends when I moved to a new house about a year after moving there. One day she invited me to come over to a swim party with some of our other friends...now, her house was the party house. I loved going over there and she was as much fun as me. We both loved to play music loud and dance crazy. 

This summer day while we were doing just that, a very cute Italian boy walked through the gate. I was over El Paso boy by a Texas mile, and I stopped dead in my dancing shoes (bare feet) and just stared at him. "What's he doing here?", I asked my friend. He was not the usual caliber guy that we attracted. He was out of our league, let me tell you...OUT. OF. OUR. LEAGUE. It was on his T-Shirt "I am out of your league".

He sauntered toward a couple of other geeky friends of ours, and they giggled and chatted with him for a while. I picked my jaw up off the ground and sat down on a lounge chair and just glanced over there a couple of times while my friend and I talked...probably asking each other, "What the...heck?".

Then...he turned and walked towards us. He said, "Hi!" and we said in unison, "hi". He looked right at me and said, "Wanna go for a ride on my motorcycle?.  "ummm, okay?" I was so witty and coy back then.

Now...let me tell you...I was wearing a 2 piece bathing suit over my boyish frame, since we were having a swim party. I quickly put on my flip flops (we called them thongs back then, but today thongs bring on a whole other vision in your mind so I will stick with flip flops) and was ready in 2 seconds flat...

...I followed him like a puppy back through the gate he had mysteriously appeared through, and saw his motorcycle sitting in the driveway. My mother's voice started ringing in my head, Lindy, don't you EVER get on a motorcycle, they are death on two wheels". But I was barely fifteen and a cute boy had asked me to. I would have jumped off the proverbial bridge, had he asked me to.

He put on his helmet, and helped me put on the other one. Picture a petite, boyish framed girl in a two piece bathing suit and flip flops with a giant black and silver motorcycle helmet on her noggin. Yeah. He got on the bike, started it up with a guttural roar like nothing else I'd heard, and motioned for me to get on behind him. We rolled down the driveway and he yelled, "Hang on!" and I wrapped my skinny arms around his waist just in time for him to gun it. 

"Weeeeeeeeee!" Was all I could think as we rode around the neighborhood streets a little faster than the legal speed limit. We were gone about 6 minutes total before he turned back up my friend's driveway and stopped the bike and turned it off. I sat there for a minute with my skinny arms around his waist and my helmet head against his back, before he slipped out of my skinny arms and off the bike, leaving me there buzzing from the excitement.

As you can imagine, all my friends were out front waiting for us in anticipation of the next ride. I took off the helmet and handed it to the cute boy and I swung my leg around to dismount the bike and then I decided to lean back on it and gloat about being picked to go for a ride... I was leaning back on the bike going over every turn of my thrill ride to my friends in an excited voice, when I smelled something burning. Sniff, sniff. "Uh, What's that burning smell?", I asked shyly. "Italian boy looked down behind me and exclaimed, "Your leg! It's on the exhaust pipe!!!".


I jumped forward because at the same nanosecond he spoke it, I felt it. "YEEEEOUCH!", I yelled... and my friend was instantly at my side turning me around to assess the damage. It was a nice 4 inch gauge in the back of my thigh that was white and smoking...and a bit painful. But not as much as it should have been, considering.

We ran in the house and frantically tried to decide what we should do. This was no little burn, and I really needed to go to a doctor...but I wasn't supposed to be on a motorcycle! Oops.

My friend cleverly said, "Well technically, you weren't "riding" the motorcycle when you were burned!".

That's it! I could lie!

We wrapped my leg up in a towel and gathered my things and called my mother. "Um, mom, um well, you see, um there was this um, motorcycle just um, parked there and it has a um, high pipe thingy that was really hot for some reason, and well, uh, I accidentally brushed across it with the back of my thigh." Yeah, that's the ticket! I'd lied. Sorta. Kinda. Hey, I admitted it to her when I was much older!

My mother drove over to my friend's house and picked me up and I sat very carefully in the car with my leg lifted gingerly, as she drove me to the doctor. It was a 3rd degree burn. Lovely. Nice scar, too.

I deserved that scar.

I never got on another motorcycle again. Probably never will. 

...and the cute Italian boy never called me. Not even to see if I was okay. I went on being geeky. He married one of my best friends. They lived happily ever after.

...and so am I  :O)











12 comments:

  1. Wanna go for ride my motorcycle?
    Best pick-up line EVER!
    And hey, if you are gonna have a scar, at least it's from something gooood!
    Thanks for stopping by to say hi!
    :) Robin

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  2. And at least the scar comes with a great story!

    Every now and then I wonder how much my parents' let me think that they didn't know what was really going on when I told them little lies...

    {Visiting from Mama Kat's}

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  3. I bet your mom knew way before you told her.

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  4. Love this! But I'm with Nana Laurie. I bet your mom knew all along.

    Visiting from Mama Kat's.

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  5. I love your story - I have a similar scar... those exhaust pipes are hotttt!

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  6. Robin~ No thanks :) You can ride for the both of us!

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  7. Sarah Lou~ I think parents know some things :)

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  8. Laurie~ She told me she suspected it, but she never let on.

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  9. Bree~ Thanks :) She suspected but never let on.

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  10. Rene W~ Thank you! They are hot! Yeeeeouch!

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