1. Some month ago I was riding to work and almost there, when at a stoplight I heard someone shouting "Heya!" over and over again. I sort of ignored it, figuring it was someone making fun of my bike, or they thought I was a chick - I don't know. But finally they came up next to me and said "Heya, got any tools?". I turned and saw a huge guy pointing across the street to his lime green chopper, parked.
His bike is a custom chopper, the kind that was hugely popular some years back. It looks like a giant dead gecko taxidermied over a tiny wheel and then big wheel. He told me the throttle cable snapped, likely from kids playing on it, and asked if I could help out. I pulled up next to him, and started going through my saddle bags - nothing. I usually carry some but I must have removed them to fit more beer in my bags or something. I rack my brain, but I can't think of an auto parts place or even a hardware place nearby, despite the fact we're in downtown Chicago. Then it hits me. Every day I ride to work I ride past a giant Harley-Davidson store. All he needs is an allen wrench. They will have an allen wrench.
"Naw, I already tried them. They just sell clothes and t-shirts. No tools."
2. Long day at work, I'm riding home around midnight on a saturday night. A lot of bikes are out, mostly newer sportbikes with stretched swingarms, etc. Some H-D cruisers. I fall in behind some guy with a newer Jap cruiser, with hard bags. Clean bike like it was detailed, polished dude to match. No helmet, just a trimmed beard and immaculate clothes, new vest, whatnot. No straight pipes, pretty quiet. I look at his plate, which reads "Md Max".
This guy gets the coveted Mad Max plate? Are you serious? The last place this guy broke up was his wife's throw pillow collection on the couch. Its the most incorrect and un-apt reference he could possibly have made. Its like if I got a plate that read "2FAST4U" and put it on my Yugo. Its wrong and incorrect on so many levels. Its like some cosmic imbalance that cries out to be righted and fixed. I want to hunt him down and take his license plate and give it to some deserving lowlife who actually embodies what Mad Max was about, more or less.
Or maybe he was a doctor with a sense of humor.
