On my way to work on the night shift Tuesday at about 1730 (530pm for you other people) I decided to stop into the gas station on La Posada and fill up the tank in my motorcycle. As I was making a right hand turn and pulling into the parking lot off the street I slipped on some water running off into the gutter. WHAM! I fell down and broke my crown… Well not my crown.
I broke the right hand mirror, right hand highway peg foot rest, bent the handlebars and handbrake lever. Scraped my left arm just below the elbow (as for why my left arm was scraped and not my right arm, I will never know how I did that side of my body) and my right leg just below the knee (damn that leg has been through some shit-different accident involving a come along chain hoist and a truck in 1985)
I quickly got up and looked around to see if anyone was looking. (Embarrassment and humiliated more than anything) Just so happens that no one was looking at that time. What a relief. Checked the damage and called Ruth come and get me because I could not get the beast to start. A few minutes later she showed up and I was able to get the motorcycle to start only with the choke all the way closed. This is a bad sign for motorcycles. Had her follow me home and parked it in the garage and took off for work with a scraped up knee and arm.
Arrived at work at 1825 (625pm for you other people) and was greeted with "about time" and "what took you so long", then "What happened to your arm?" At this time the humiliation of telling everyone at work what had just transpired an hour earlier. To which I got the replies of laughter and "See…you should get better tires for that bike." This is the usual from a work place where 75% of our work force is Ex-navy., me as being within that 75%. So this response is well known and expected. In other words a more normal response would be "YOU DUMBASS SHIT! IT SERVES YOU RIGHT!"
About 1945 (745pm for you other people) Ruth shows back up at work with a blueberry shake from Scoopers. "You have just been in an accident. You need ice cream." Who am I to argue with that logic.-:) Now that is a great girlfriend.
I got off work at 0630 (630am for you other people) Wednesday morning and stayed awake until 2030 (830pm for you other people) to get back into a normal night sleep pattern.
Just because I did not have good tires on it in the first place I am going to be looking at about $1000 in repairs and a little bit of time off the road from riding. CRAP! With the present road rashes and the possibilities of future road rashes along with the other woes of motorcycling: I want back on the road NOW! At least my jeep repair bill is paid off. This will not be even attempted to be fixed until next payday two weeks from now. Rent this payday and my daughter asked to borrow $350 from me from this paycheck. This is one of those times I actually can. It will be one year on August 3rd that I can say YIPEEEEE!!!!!!!