..........it was a complete set of FALSE
TEETH--uppers & lowers!!!!
Now of course everybody wanted to
know what the hell I was screaming about and I just stammered & pointed. Reptaro
brought a light over & looked (why didn't I do that?) in the pocket & let out a
good "Oh Man!". At this point I figured that this was no longer an
abandoned campsite--it's a crime scene. I could accept the left-behind gear (it was new,
but cheap stuff), the clothes, the shoes, but who goes wandering around without their
TEETH. Ughhh I touched a convicts false teeth with my bare left hand--not even a cycling
glove between me & them. It was the creepiest sensation since I shook the
three-fingered hand of Homeless Guy Bob (coincidence?). It was agreed that we needed
to get the hell out of there, so we tossed everything in the dismantled tent and took
off. No booty, but another interesting tale of mountainbike weirdness, and one of my
all time best screams, of course, there have been many......
I scream a lot on rides.
Sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of pain. On the epic Lost Crusade
disaster (I mean ride), I did a bee-just-stung-me-where -my-bathing-suit-goes-scream
because a bee really did sting me where my bathing suit goes. He got me right in the
middle of my right butt-cheek (I didn't even feel him draw the bulls-eye). We had
just had a run in with a huge black rattlesnake blocking the trail, so when I let out the
scream, Reptaro thought I had been bitten, but he laughed anyway. Crashes &
falls are good resources for screams as well. I might scream before the crash (fear) or
after (pain), but I usually follow with a string of "I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK".
It's always good when you really are OK because then you can laugh with everyone
else at what an idiot you are. If you take yourself seriously, then no one else
will, but then again, who cares what the bastards think.
My best all-time scream was
probably in Asheville, NC. Reptaro & I headed south to visit the recently relocated
Power-Yankee and his chick, Martha Stewart. Actually we went there to ride & get away
from NEPA (that's North-East PA). The scream didn't occur on one of the rides but in
the middle of the night. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but as near as I can tell I
was sleeping on the living room floor having some bizarre dream where spiders were
constructing a fence of some kind with yellow thumbtacks & string when (I think)
Battle Cat brushed his tail against my face & I totally freaked out. I grabbed
my flashlight & jumped up in one move and was screaming "STRING!!! the
STRING Snakes WHERE!!!". Reptaro was sleeping on the futon nearby and
laughed for a solid hour, & then chuckled for another 45 minutes. I still blame
the cat--and that beef barbecue stew from the night before. Even though the scream
didn't happen on a ride, it happened on a ride trip, so I think it still counts. The point
of all this?
Mountainbike rides are a
scream---especially when you're doing it right.
Epilogue:
We never did find out what
happened to Toothless Convict Bob. Someone was supposed to call the
authorities & let them know what we found but never did. A couple of weeks later we
checked the site again & everything was gone.
Coming soon: Pennsylvania Jeff and the Trail of Doom! |
