The Ride Report

My MC had a two-fer on surprise birthday parties this weekend — one for me, one for our president.

Mine was Saturday night. Our club has a standing routine of having a barbeque at the clubhouse Saturday nights. If you’re busy you don’t need to show up, but if you’re looking for something to do you can find it there. So Saturday morning my wife said she was going over to her friend’s house to play cards and that I was on my own for the night and that I should go to the barbeque. Well, I was still feeling antisocial, so I told her I’d probably just stay home and watch TV or something. A little while later my club brother Slider emails everyone to say we’re having a barbeque that night and to bring money because he’s going to get a poker game going. I love poker — in fact I taught half the guys how to play Hold Em — so I decided I’d go after all.

I found out later that he and my wife were in cahoots on this. She called him to say I said I wasn’t going, so he sent out the poker email because he knew that would be bait I couldn’t resist.

That evening, my wife leaves for her friend’s house, and a little while later I took off for the clubhouse. When I got there I pulled into my usual parking spot, and while I was taking off my helmet and gloves … my wife comes out. “What are you doing here?” I asked. Even then it took me a minute to figure it out. Not real quick on the uptake, that’s me.

Slider’s wife had made lasagna, they had a big birthday cake for me, and I ended up tripling my money at poker. Happy Birthday to me.

The surprise party for our P happened yesterday. A group of us rode down to San Diego for a poker run one of our chapters was throwing down there. After the run was over our P kept wanting to get going for home, but we kept stalling him. One guy had to get in line for the bathroom. I had to put my chaps on … then take them off because it wasn’t raining anymore … then put them back on because the roads were still wet. One guy invented a problem with his exhaust that needed “fixing.” A prospect wasn’t ready to go. Another guy just flat-out disappeared for about half an hour. We were stalling because one of our guys was busy running around town up here in L.A. picking up barbeque and a birthday cake.

Once we got word we didn’t need to stall anymore, we hit the road for home. Our usual practice on runs like this is to ride in side-by-side formation and each guy peels off along the way where he needs to to get home. This time we all stayed with the P.

I was road captain on this run, and when we got close to where I knew he’d be getting off the freeway, I slowed up and waved him up to the front to take the lead. As we approached his exit he gave us all a big wave goodbye and moved over one lane. We all waved back and changed lanes right behind him. A little further along he gave us another big wave goodbye and changed lanes again. Again, we all waved back and followed him into the next lane. He got to his exit, signaled, waved to us again, and went down the off-ramp. We all waved and followed him off the freeway. At the bottom of the ramp he was bewildered. “Where are you guys going?” he asked. “Your house,” we told him, and we all followed him all the way home, right up his driveway. He didn’t figure it out we got to his house, saw the cake, and we told him what was up. He was about as quick on the uptake as I was.

And I don’t want to brag, but I think I gave him the best gift of all: a glow-in-the-dark Tingler Ring that I got from a vending machine in a bathroom in one of the bars in San Diego. Only 75 cents, but worth every penny.