Snow, sprinkles and mad danger

Of course it’s the Nibblet’s fault.  It has to be.  I’m far too sensible to do stoopid shit like this on my own.  To be fair, it’s a rare day when Dillsboro catches a foot of snow.  It’s almost as rare as WCU canceling classes due to snow.  So I guess there were environmental issues at work as well as raw sprinkle-headedness.  I was fucked when I let the Nibblet share couch space and a blanket with me.  For those of you have led deprived lives, you might not know the Nibblet.  You life is lacking due to this.  You should adjust yourself accordingly.  Imagine combining an uber-hot hippie chick with a pixie.  You get a lot of strange noises, positive energy, sparkly sprinkles, and yummie hugs.  Since she is one of my Orange Belts, you might also get your ass kicked if you interfere with her elemental happiness.  There is another thing to remember about the Nibblet.  She is communicable.  You get some sprinkles on you, you find yourself believing anything is possible and even likely.  As I write this, she is in the kitchen contaminating the Midget.  Hearing the Turbo Midget giggle like a six year old is one of the creepiest sounds ever.  Believe that I have the 12 gauge out and it is loaded with deer slugs and dimes.

Anywho, another thing that you must know about the Nibblet is that she is a snow addict.  I mean crackhead addict.  She starts twitching and quivering, and puppy-wiggling all over the place if somebody says the word “snow” on a hot day in July.  She is off the fucking chain right now.  You know the little ball that flew all over the place in Men in Black and broke everything?  Put kinky blonde hair on it and turn up the energy level about 150% and you have a good idea of what is happening in the kitchen right now.  Remember when I said she was communicable?  Remember when I said I was on the couch with her?

Next thing I know, I am wearing snow shit and everyone is looking at me like I said something.  Oh fuck it.  We grab DR’s sit on top kayak and wander over to Monteith Park in Dillsboro.  There is a pretty steep hill with only one chain link fence in the area.  Well, there are all those pesky curbs and concrete slabs and what not, but they were under a couple of inches of snow.  Under the Nibblet’s influence, I figured that if I could not see it under the snow, it must not exist.  Seriously, the girl has that effect on you.  It’s like her sprinkles tank your IQ.  For the record, a couple of inches of snow does not prevent concrete barriers from knocking your teeth loose.  Just putting that out there…

We had a couple of solo runs a piece before I figured out that the girls were softer than the ground, so we started doing group runs down the slope.  That was much better, but on the last one, the Midget developed a serious list to port, and Nibbles went with her, inverting the sled and dumping us in a heap.  Nibblet ended up landing on me, and she got some more sprinkles on me.  I decided that bad-assery quotient was not full enough.  I scouted out a serious hill and we assessed it.  As soon as we decided that it was too dangerous to attempt, we also decided we needed a jump to go with it.  Did I mention that I was Under The Effect?  Picture a steep ass hill about 70 feet long.  Put a ditch at the bottom.  Fill the ditch with snow to hide it from observation.  Now have a cracked-out snow bunny build a jump at the far edge of the ditch we did not know was there.  I went up the hill and then climbed to a higher elevation on a snow covered path that could potentially add 60 feet and one death turn to our run.  It turned out to be a bust.  The banking was wrong and I had to tilt so far starboard that I was riding on my right hipbone to keep from going off the edge and down about 140 feet into the parking lot.  Not cool.

An astute reader might note that I mentioned a hidden ditch right in front of the jump.  How do I know about it if it’s hidden?  Well, it’s like this…  during the construction of the jump a lot of snow had been moved around and there was now an 18 inch ditch just prior to the jump.  It was not a gradual, sloping ditch that would add to the effectiveness of the jump.  Nosir.  It was a stop-right-the-fuck-here, grab-the-tip-of-the-kayak, flip-the-motherfucker-over-on-your-pointed-little-noggin straight-the-fuck-up-and-down sort of ditch.  Now, the Nibblet is a way experienced ski and snowboard instructor with thousands of working hours under her belt.  The Midget is an honest-to-god engineer, and I have done both construction and ballistics for decades.  You’d think one of us would have said ”uhhh…”  

This

This is the power of sprinkles.  We all saw the inherent fail.  We all knew this was an emergency room visit for at least one of us.  A fucking five year old would have spotted this.  We all saw it.  We were all under the influence.  Nibblet was cracking out, and we were sprinkle compromised.  I said “the top of that jump is going to bust like a house brand rubber at a ten dollar Mexican bordello.”  Midget said “we all go together!”  Nibblet said “ooooH  Ahhhh  ughie! twhee! Whazzawah! YAH!”  Seriously.  You have to know the girl.  Fully realizing the impending fail le piled onto the kayak and launched ourselves over the cliff.

Straight into the face of death, dismemberment, and a ride in the wah wah wagon.

We never even got close.

Missed the jump by at least 10 feet and ended up ass over elbow in the parking lot.  After much good nature giggling, wiggling, and then having to suppress a Midget-led uprising, and lay a snow smack down, we wandered home.  Frozen solid, tired, and wet, but none-the-less victorious.

Old inane ramblings

(as opposed to new inane ramblings)

Ok.  So, for a long time I have been pondering the possibility of transferring my blog to somewhere new since Myspace started to suck seriously.  I am hanging out with the MAN this week, and he uses and loves blogspot, so I said, what the hell, and here I am.  Bear with me that I don’t know how to use this fucker yet, but this should be considered the transitional page.  All material posted prior to this was old stuff from Myspace.  For my serious readers (both of you,) this subscription system works, and you can be told whenever I get off my lazy ass and write something new.  Cheers!

A product review

So, my longtime readers (both of them) know that periodically I post a product review.  These reviews are not sponsored by anybody (basically because I can’t get anybody to bribe me to say good shit about their product.)  I felt that I should take a few seconds, though, and let you know my opinion on a product.  Be advised, I am doing a specific review.  This review covers Army field use only.  I don’t know If this works in the real world, and I don’t give a rat’s ass.  This is about my experience with the product during my last mission.

The product in question is “Purex complete 3 in 1.”  These suckers are pretty handy.  What they are is a 3 in 1 laundry product.  It's a small sheet of fabric (about 6 x 8 inches) that has been treated with detergent and other laundry chemical shit.  You toss the thing in the washer, transfer it to the dryer, and you are done.  No fucking around with detergent liquids or powders or anything like that.  This is an awesome idea for anybody that either has to carry all their shit on their back, or has their bags handled by a squad of mountain gorillas.

For anybody not in the know, when you move out for a military mission, you damn well better bring laundry shit with you.  The law of military life says that the only PX you have access to will be out of everything but Aqua Velva, disposable Bic razors, and toothpaste that expired during the Carter administration.  You can’t carry two weeks worth of laundry on your back no matter how hard you try, so bring your soap.

The thing to remember is that Army trucks are usually loaded by a couple of privates that are pissed off because they didn’t get out of sight quickly enough when a sergeant was looking for workers.  Seven Mongolian mountain yeti armed with mallets, pitchforks, and hearts full of hatred can’t do as much damage as two disgruntled army privates.   If you have a bottle of liquid in your bag when you start, you fucking sure don’t when you get there.  Once somebody who had a couple bottles of gourmet hippy water in his bag gets the same treatment you did, the resulting mixture of water and Tide make the entire truck look like it has rabies.   It’s even more insidious if you use powdered soap.  The bag will rip open and all your clothes will fill with soap powder.  If you don’t get busted for suspicion of smuggling smack in your undies, you break out like a leper because concentrated laundry soap is more caustic than lye.

Welcome to the Army.  1460 and a wakeup.

So let’s talk about Purex complete 3 in 1.  Right from jump street, these damn things are convenient.  They are small and lightweight and easy to carry.  They don’t leak or break.  Good to go.  The next question is, “how well do they work?”  How the fuck would I know?  Army washing machines are so battered and overused that it is not uncommon for them to burst into flames.  Not the dryers… The washers.  If Archangel Gabriel made magical laundry detergent, it would be basically worthless in an Army washer.  Everyone thinks that we wear camouflage to blend into the woods.   DUH.  We are fighting in the desert.  We wear cammo pattern so you can’t see the dirt in the uniform.  They issue brown underwear for the same reason… more on that later.

The first part of Purex 3 in 1 is “detergent.”  Purex works just as well as any other laundry soap in an Army washing machine.  End of story.  I guess that this would be the time to bring up the issue of brown issue underwear.  There are things in the Army called MRE’s.  Meals Ready to Eat.  3 lies for the price of one.  Efficiency at its best.  MRE’s have the same effect on your digestive tract that swallowing a live badger and washing it down with a vinegar and baking soda cocktail would.  While rarely fatal, the results are unpleasant at best.  Now, lets talk about HMMWVs (Hum-vees or hummers.)  Riding in an Army truck is sort of like sitting on an unbalanced washing machine that is bolted to a tilt-a-whirl.  There is a good bit of vibration involved.  When combined with MRE’s, the tightie-whities take a serious ass kicking.  There is a simple mathematical equation.

MRE + hummer transportation + Army Washer + Purex 3 in 1 = Terry Labonte quality skid marks.

The second part of 3 in 1 addresses scent.  Does Purex 3 in 1 make your clothes smell laundry fresh?  Who the fuck cares?  The average Soldier is pouring sweat out of  every bodily orifice within 10 minutes of putting the damn uniform on anyway.  What do the clothes smell like?  They smell like raw ass.  I guess there is one thing about laundry detergent smell that needs to be addressed.  Some laundry detergents have a lot of phosphates and such in them.  You can’t smell phosphates.  You know what else uses heavy phosphates in it?  A fucking bomb.  You know what can smell phosphates?  A fucking bomb dog.  You have not lived until you have a Military Working Dog go "ears deep" into your groin thinking that you have an IED in your junk drawer.  You know the distance from the tip of a German Sheppard’s nose to his ears?  I don’t either.  But having a dog go “ears deep” into your ballsack to check out that phosphate residue is not on my “to do” list.

The third advertized function of Purex 3 in 1 is its anti-static abilities.  I must give this feature two enthusiastic thumbs up.  Army socks are special.  I think that the sheep the wool came from were killed by lightning strikes.  For some reason running seven pairs of Army socks through a dryer produces a basket ball sized gob of black wool that holds a static charge equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant.  I am a Military Police officer.  They periodically like to hit me with a tazer.  I am qualified to tell you that a wool sock ball will

Light

You

The fuck

Up.

Peeling off the socks too quickly can degauss a hard drive at 10 feet.  Purex lays the smack down on static build up.  This is clearly an important feature to a Soldier.

To recap the product review:

 

 Purex 3 in 1

Pros:

Does not suck as a detergent
Prevents lethal static charges in socks
Resists handling damage from high level primates
Is not likely to get you de-boned by an attack trained military dog.

Cons:

Skid marks from hell

Over all I would strongly recommend this as the right product for field use.  The 20 pack is available at Wally World for a reasonable price.  I don’t remember what it costs, because I was buying a few containers of beer to celebrate my inevitable victorious return, and the purchase price got absorbed in that transaction.  I dub the cost insignificant in the larger scheme of things and therefore irrelevant.

Peace

Pride goeth before a serious spooging

Some people are good at some stuff.  Some people are good at others.  This realization came to me very easily, as a large puddle of sporf landed on my forehead.  I can only imagine that drywall mud that is thinned down to first coat viscosity resembles what you use to inseminate mares with, in texture and color.  And volume.  Here’s the deal.

The ceiling has got to be taped and mudded.  Teef and The New Guy Who Remains As Of Yet Unnamed (TNGWRAOYU) have both done some work on the walls.  There is more work to be done, but they both have done some.  I decided to start the ceiling.

The thing to remember is that I have never actually done tape & mud.  Sonic and Che did the dojo under J the D while I was out working hurricane Katrina for the Guard.  The god of drywall did the Warehouse dojo.  A couple of unnamed bubba workers did the Canton house.  I started to do one wall, got pissed, kicked the thing down, and declared that there should have never been a wall there in the first place.

Now, you have to understand that I am something of a badass in my own mind.  If I decide I’m going to do something, I pretty much do it.  I might be a drywall savant.  You don’t know.  I might have innate mad drywall skills and go my whole life without knowing it, because I never tried. 

I am not a drywall savant.   

You see, pride is a fucked up thing.  It can make you do stoopid shit.  It can get you into fights, get you killed, or leave you looking like a masturbating elephant has been using you for target practice.  I could have worked on one of the walls Teef started.  I could have worked on one of TNGWRAOYU’s corners.  But not me.  No sir.  The ceiling needed to get done, looked hard to do, so let’s get to it.  I’ll kick its ass.

You see, despite the fact that I constantly attempt to hammer this point into people, well to be exact into Sonic, badassery in one area does not translate automatically into badassery in all areas.  Knowing that I have zero experience, I should have done a wall.  Noooooooo.  Not me.  The very first blade of mud I attempted to transfer from the blade to the ceiling left an egg sized splorf right on my forehead.  It was of Holmsien quality. 

Score so far:  nine seconds into the job, and I look like Johnny Wad’s bitch.  This was the high point of the job.  It went down hill fast.

To my credit, I managed to finish the mud I mixed, getting less than half on me, and at least a quarter of it on the ceiling.  I would estimate that I got shit in the general direction of the ceiling joints in about 1/8^th of the ceiling.  I staggered out of the dojo an hour or so later, as bewildered as a young starlet after the filming of her first bukkake movie.  A gross, but unfortunately accurate, visual image.  As I mentioned, less than half the mud I used ended up on the ceiling.  Fortunately, drywall mud cleans out very easily in the washer or the shower.  I just wonder if being that thoroughly spooged will leave lingering stains on the soul.  It didn’t do much for the ego.

Ode to my cat's nuts (in G minor)

Some of you know Sam.  He’s the Elephant House’s Warrior Tomcat.  He’s an old school Tom.  He has at least one other home, as he will go out on a walk-about, and come back four or five weeks later, well fed.  He is a serious brawler, collecting scars, scabs, and notched ears as badges of his courage.  I’ve seen the little bastard square off against 30 pound raccoons like they were nothing.  Possums and ground hogs are prey, and there is a 90 pound or so mix breed dog in the neighborhood that runs like a little bitch when Sam appears.  Not bad for a 12 pound cat.

Sam finally met his match last week.  He got chomped on a bit.  Given the fact I have seen him kick some serious ass way out of his weight class, I figure he must have been brawling with a small bear.  His paw got seriously torn up, and he came home to rest and heal.  It looked like he was healing ok, but Wednesday I noticed that his paw looked puffy and swollen, and he was suppurating, so I decided to introduce him to the dubious joys of medical care.

He occasionally wanders into the house.  Mostly he shuns the “citified” nonsense.  He is a Fierce Predator, and the outdoors is his domain.  I am the only person who has ever been able to pick him up and keep my intestinal track on the inside.  He does not suffer human foolishness gently.

When he was two or so, he decided to test me out and see who was boss.  He was pretty tough, having been raised, literally, in the shadow of the Elephant House.  Hell, there’s not much in the Elephant House that won’t fuck you cross-eyed given half a chance.  Our damn furniture has teeth.  Sam was pretty scrappy.  Fortunately, I keep a length of motorcycle chain in the office to deal with territorial disputes, and was able to convince him that my patience with foolishness was even shorter than his.  We’ve gotten along fine since then.  Anyone that believes chain whipping a cat in a fight is excessive has never spent any time around the Elephant House.  Seriously.

I stopped by the vet about 1 this afternoon to make arrangements.  They said if I could get him in right away, they could patch him up this evening.  OK.  No prob.  I stopped by Wally-World and bought a “pet taxi.”  What a stoopid name.  All they had were cheap-shit no names.  I bought a cat sized one.  Che was with me, and he suggested that I get a bigger one to make it easier to get Sam into it.  Hell with that.  No way am I letting that fucker build up some momentum.  He is empirically trained in Goju-Ryu  (think about the story of Splinter in the Ninja Turtles sagas.)  No way was I giving him room to work.

I got home, and Sam was chilling in his house that we attached to the side of the E-House.  He has a window that we open to allow him to saunter through and grace us mere mortals with his presence.  I opened it, and he saunter through to accept his due subservience and afternoon noshies.   I closed the window, and Che and I proceeded to box him in by shutting doors.  I set to assembling the POS cat carrier, and Sam decided that this action might have something to do with him.  He started sneering at me and got all sorts of agitated.  Once I got the box assembled, I surprised him by scooping him up and tossing him inside.  He promptly kicked the door off.  Seriously.  One shot.  Bang.  Door flying across the hall.  He made his first tactical mistake then, leaping out and diving into the bathroom.  I shut the door and he was Stuck like Chuck.  He promptly tore the shower curtain down to express his displeasure.  I think he dropped the bar on his own head, as he was a little unsteady when I dug him out of the curtain.

Once the box was re-assembled, I went to toss him in again, but he was ready for me, and slapped his rear legs out to stop all forward momentum.  I grew up around cats, and I know a thing or two.  I grabbed one of his Achilles tendons and gave it a light squeeze.  He rocketed into the box like his ass was on fire.

He cursed me soundly as only a Tomcat can all the way to the vet.  I called Boobie and let him curse her a bit too.

 Share the love, that’s my motto.

 Besides, she was pressuring me to get the cat neutered.  All the cursing should have been directed at her.  On a side note, all the Elephants were all solidly aligned against me, that I should have him de-nutted.  They were all citing “responsibility” and stoopid shit like that.  My argument “but that’s HIS JUNK!” was not well received.  I promised to investigate the cost and consider it.  Fuck that. “ Live and let live,” I really thought.

Anyhoo, we got to the vet’s, and I got him inside.  I explained to the vet that this was not the average housecat she was used to.  She pretty much blew me off with assurances that she “dealt with cats every day.”  I was not convinced, but just to cover my ass, when I was filling out the paperwork, I listed his breed as “Warrior Tomcat.”  Fuck ‘em.  You try to talk to some people.  I was still mostly concerned about the infection in his foot at this point.  The vet picked up the cat cage.  No sooner than she had hold of it than Sam kicked the door off again and headed for the hills.  No shit.  The door somehow flew completely off and hit the wall three feet from her leg.  It was immediately followed by 12 pounds of fluffy badass.  Realizing that the door was secure, Sam altered his angle of flight and headed into the window.  At the last instant he twisted as he sprung, and his hip slammed into the glass. 

You know, he must have done this before.

If the window had been single pane glass, he probably would have made good his escape.  As it was, the glass was a good insulated kind, and much to his disgust, he bounced off.  He was seriously bent sideways at this point, and perfectly prepared to re-negotiate our status-of-force treaty.  Pausing a few seconds, I pulled on my sap gloves.  For those of you not in the know, I occasionally work event security, and nothing says “nappy-time” to an angry drunk like eight ounces of steel shot sewn into the knuckles of a heavy leather glove.  The cat knows that those gloves are not a bluff.  As he ricocheted off the window, he landed in a fighting stance.  Once he saw me don the gloves, however, his attitude changed.  Backing into a corner, he put his most helpless-little-scared-kitty face on.  Fuck that, this was not my first rodeo.  The gloves stayed on.  The receptionist was oblivious, and was all “awww the poor thing is scared to death!”  The vet, however, saw Sam’s little attitude switch and figured shit out.  “I do this all the time, don’t worry,” changed to “we are going to have to sedate this animal to treat him.”

Sedation costs 50 bucks.

Scooping out the inside of his nutsack costs 55 bucks, sedation and an over-night observation included.

I heard bagpipes.

Those nuts are done.

Buh-bye.

The last time I paid to have a cat’s nuts ripped off, it was 1989, and it cost me 95 bucks.  What a bargain! The little bastard was fucked.

I stopped by at 4:30 this evening and checked on him.  He was recovered from his anesthesia, and innocently sharpening his claws on the cage bars.  I suspect that he wants to have a little discussion with me the next time I turn my back on him.

We’ll see…  If I show up to dojo construction Saturday morning looking like I French kissed a weed whacker, you will know that he sucker me in and dealt severe vengeance on me.

Honesty in blogging

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/10/mommy.bloggers.ethics/index.html

 

You have got to be shitting me!  People get free shit for talking about how cool shit is in a blog???  What kind of shit is that?  How do I get in on this shit?    The FTC is thinking about getting involved?  Really?  I don’t get the problem.  According to the article listed above,  “mommybloggers”  are talking all kinds of good about products they are being given for free by advertisers.  Again, what’s the fucking problem here?  I’d sell out the integrity of my blog in an instant, the only problem is that nobody has made an offer. 

Really.  People are turning to bloggers for truth and honesty?  Really?  Hey!  I’m a blogger.  I have this little problem.  I’m the heir to a vast (diamond, coal, emerald,  fill-in-the-blank fortune), but my evil (step-brother, government, communist regime) has my fortune tied up.  I can only count on the kindness of you, a total stranger, to save me.  Send me your bank account number, and I’ll put 60 million bucks in your account.  Magically, while I can’t get my cash out of the country, you can.  I’ll send you a Swiss Bank Account number; you deposit 50 million bucks in my account and keep 10 million for yourself!

You know…  about 6,000 fucktards  a year give their bank account number to these assholes, and sit back and wait to get rich.  I’ll bet you, while they are waiting for their 10 million bucks, they check in at mommydot.com to see what products are best to spend their new-found wealth on.

Ethics in blogging???  Is this something our government really needs to get involved in???  How about they fucking fix Social Security and let stupid motherfuckers get scammed.  Last month, I saw a picture of a stripper who had “caveat emptor” tattooed right above her ass.  This was the last 100% true thing I saw on the internet.  Who the fuck are these whining cunts?  “Oh… I can’t trust the word of a total stranger 100%!  The government needs to step in!  I need a dumb-ass bailout!  Save me congress, because you are the epitome of truth!”

Attention Major Corporations and other assorted Rich Motherfuckers:

Send me free shit!  I’ll talk it up like there’s no tomorrow.  I’ll make your shit seem vital to sustained life on the fucking planet.  Now, since I don’t get 16,452 suckers a day like these chicks seem to (maybe I’ll start up sneakymommy.com,) I don’t expect a Lexus or anything.  Hell, send me a free Coke!  I’ll promote your shit!  In my time, I have promoted Dr. Sneaky’s Dirty Drawer Bomb, some ray gun that stuns obnoxious children, and my own book.  Obviously, I’ll promote anything.  Make me an offer.  When I get more bored, I’ll prolly talk about the kick-ass robot mopping the spilled beer off my kitchen floor at this very moment.

Now that I think about it, I’m sort of offended that nobody ever offered me a bribe to blog for them before now.  I’ll probably need 2 cokes before you get any work out of me.

Call me.

Why you shouldn't mess with squirrels

I love this one.  It has everything.  Motorcycles, Squirrley Wrath, the works.  I can't claim credit for this.  The chaplain at the hospital mailed it out to all the employees, and Boobie forweirded it to me.  Sit back, crack open a Cold Beverage of Your Choice and prepare to be entertained.  This story is really well written.

Neighborhood Street Hazard (or: Why the Cops Won't Patrol Brice Street)

I never dreamed slowly cruising through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous!

Studies have shown that motorcycling requires more decisions per second, and more sheer data processing than nearly any other common activity or sport. The reactions and accurate decision making abilities needed have been likened to the reactions of fighter pilots! The consequences of bad decisions or poor situational awareness are pretty much the same for both groups too.

Occasionally, as a rider I have caught myself starting to make bad or late decisions while riding. In flight training, my instructors called this being "behind the power curve". It is a mark of experience that when this begins to happen, the rider recognizes the situation, and more importantly, does something about it. A short break, a meal, or even a gas stop can set things
right again as it gives the brain a chance to catch up.

Good, accurate, and timely decisions are essential when riding a motorcycle at least if you want to remain among the living. In short, the brain needs to keep up with the machine.

I had been banging around the roads of east Texas and as I headed back into Dallas, found myself in very heavy, high-speed traffic on the freeways. Normally, this is not a problem, I commute in these conditions daily, but suddenly I was nearly run down by a cage that decided it needed my lane more than I did. This is not normally a big deal either, as it happens around
here often, but usually I can accurately predict which drivers are not paying attention and avoid them before we are even close. This one I missed seeing until it was nearly too late, and as I took evasive action I nearly broadsided another car that I was not even aware was there!

Two bad decisions and insufficient situational awareness.all within seconds. I was behind the power curve. Time to get off the freeway.

I hit the next exit, and as I was in an area I knew pretty well, headed through a few big residential neighborhoods as a new route home. As I turned onto the nearly empty streets I opened the visor on my full-face helmet to help get some air. I figured some slow riding through the quiet surface streets would give me time to relax, think, and regain that "edge" so
frequently required when riding.

Little did I suspect.

As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me. It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it-it was that close.

I hate to run over animals.and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact.

Animal lovers never fear. Squirrels can take care of themselves!

Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing the oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his little beady eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Banzai!" or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" as the leap was spectacular and he flew over the windshield and impacted me squarely in the chest.

Instantly he set upon me. If I did not know better I would have sworn he brought twenty of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light t-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and leather gloves puttering maybe 25mph down a quiet residential street and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing.

I grabbed for him with my left hand and managed to snag his tail. With all my strength I flung the evil rodent off the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw.

That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser.

But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary p-o'd squirrel.

This was an evil attack squirrel of death!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands, and with the force of the throw swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact he landed square on my back and resumed his rather anti-social and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him!

The situation was not improved. Not improved at all. His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him.

I was startled to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result. Torque. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very
good at it.

The engine roared as the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed in anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in well I ------just plain screamed.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel torn t-shirt, and only one leather glove roaring at maybe 70mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel and with a demonic squirrel on his back. The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.

With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to
mash the back brake, but it had little affect against the massive power of the big cruiser.

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he is a Scottish attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got IN my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed partway and he began hissing in my face I am quite sure my screaming changed tone and intensity. It seemed to have little affect on the squirrel however.

The rpm's on The Dragon maxed out (I was not concerned about shifting at the moment) and her front end started to drop.

Now picture the large man on the huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very ragged torn t-shirt, and wearing one leather glove, roaring at probably 80mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out his mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand. I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of, so to speak.

Picture the scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork.

Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser dressed in jeans, a torn t-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing one leather glove, moving at probably 80mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.

I heard screams. They weren't mine...

I managed to get the big motorcycle under directional control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign at a busy cross street.

I would have returned to fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really. But for two things. First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. One of them was on his back in the front yard of the house they had been parked in front of and was rapidly crabbing backwards away from the patrol car. The other was standing in the street and was training a riot shotgun on the police cruiser.

So the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway. That was one thing. The other? Well, I swear I could see the squirrel, standing in the back window of the patrol car among shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery, and shaking his little fist at me. I think he was shooting me the lower Hawaiian love sign.

That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made an easy right turn, and sedately left the neighborhood.

As for my easy and slow drive home? No way. Faced with a choice of 80mph cars and inattentive drivers, or the evil, demonic, attack squirrel of death...I'll take my chances with the freeway. Every time.

And I'll buy myself a new pair of gloves.

CU Again,
Daniel Meyer
HarleyDavidsonforums.com