I have an unhealthy obsession with motorcycles--unhealthy in the sense that my soul is aching to own one but reality keeps crushing my soul with brutal force. Reality can be a bastard.
There are any number of reasons I'm not riding the bad boy pictured above or one like it to work everyday or through the city streets on a Sunday afternoon or on the back roads running through the hills outside of town. Chief among them is the fact that growing children apparently need food, water, clothes, a safe place to sleep, and a few other odds and ends to survive. Odds and ends don't come cheap these days. Thus, the dreaded Priority List rears its ugly head. Priorities can be a bastard.
Middle-aged men riding a foreign bike, unfortunately, doesn't rate too highly on the "must-have" list. As bad ass as I would look propped up on this Royal Enfield, and trust me, I would look bad ass, reality isn't having any part of it.
"Sorry, man. Can't swing it right now," he'll say.
"What about tomorrow?" I'll ask.
"Doesn't look good, kid. Daycare, pre-school, car insurance, braces, vet bills . . . You know the routine, man."
"Yeah, I know. I was just hoping."
"Well, that's your problem, brother. Stop hoping."
And there you go.
But "this is the year the Fink beats the Stomach." (Look it up.) This is the year I become an optimist of the highest order. I won't allow myself to go all, "Well, I guess it's not meant to be. Not everyone is cut out to hit the open road."
Hell, no. This year, I'll keep socking away a buck or two here and there and keep thinking, "Oh, how much greater the sights I'll see one day will be for having worked and waited for these bad ass two wheels."
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