So the b/f was telling me a story tonight related to this. On the night in question, he was drinking the special brew on cask Belgian Strawberry. He was in the pub recently and the bartender was telling him that her husband was in the following Monday after this crazy night, had some of the same cask brew, and was violently ill and disoriented in the bar, totally out of it. This guy is the bartender's husband and soon to be first-time dad (as well as a fellow scooterist with a Honda Met). She would never have allowed the father of her soon-to-be-new-son drink too much at her place of work. So we've decided there was something up with this cask that reacted terribly with some folks' dispositions. I'm glad I didn't have any!
Oh the Lammy is awesome btw.
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Ok, I just had to share tonight's story. It involves scooters, beer, police, bolt cutters, neighbors, fisherman at the yacht club (non-members), more neighbors, more police and I'm not asleep yet.
This is the first week of the semester on the campus where I work. For those of you in the education field, first week is beyond crazy. Think Black Friday, day after day after day. Today is Friday and I just left the stack of "I gotta do this" on my desk and walked out at 4.30pm.
I rode home the long way past the pub where my b/f likes to go on Fridays (he doesn't work Fridays) and his scoot wasn't there. I went home and he was putting on his helmet, sheepishly, explaining that he forgot to go to the bank and make the deposit like I asked this morning. "Oh great," I said, "I'll come with" and off we go, me on my Buddy and him on the '58 Lammy (this is an important detail).
After the bank I say, "So, shall we visit Julie?" (she's the bartender at the Friday place). He replies, "Yeah, Tommy has the Triumph today!" I had no idea how many he'd had before the bank trip. I wish I had known (this is foreshadowing).
We're in the pub for awhile, talking with Tommy who's showing me his Cortech jacket (his bike has been in the shop forever) in a 3X (he's a big guy...I grabbed his hand and asked how he ever finds gloves). He invited me to straddle the Triumph. I let him take the Bud for a spin. He liked the get-up-and-go, and then said "when you're ready, you need to take out the Triumph" [read: having had no alcohol].
Later Chris arrives with his Creamsicle Triumph Bonneville. It's a nice machine. We talk license plate holders (he has the custom front fender curved plate with the same numbers as his real plate) and his throttle resty thing (I can't think of the name now, I'm tired).
We're all ready to head out, and he gets on the Bonneville, me on the Bud and my b/f on the Lammy. The Bonnie is screaming; I toot my Stebel and Chris toots his Stebel back! He liked that it was standard (I have an International). My b/f push starts the Lammy (it's acting up, ever heard of that with a FIFTY YEAR OLD bike?!) and off we all go. Chris heads off toward his home; we head off in our direction. As we're cruising, I notice the b/f seems hesitant, but I still follow normally. We come to a light and the bike is acting up (it doesn't like to be stopped) and all of a sudden he veers to the right to head up a ramp toward the Interstate. We're in town; we live in town; where the hell are you going? Oh, and by this time he's pushing it up the ramp to jump start it.
I pull up onto the sidewalk (this is a weird part of town where this is nothing but overpasses, streets, and empty parking lots) and run towards him screaming "What are you doing? Wrong way, wrong way! Get off the ramp!". Then I look and he tips over, Lammy on top. "Sheesh!" I think. What is going on? I run over and help him up and say, "We're going to back the Lammy down the ramp and I'll push him up onto the sidewalk. Then we're going to ride home on my scoot and I'll come back with the locks and lock up the Lammy overnight." He finally understood...up until the 'we're leaving the Lammy alone while we scoot home' part. "Oh, I'll push it home." (We're 2 miles from home and it involves a bridge and there will be no pushing.)
I finally convinced him to get on the back of the Buddy and off we go. He is the worst passenger in the world. First light I'm screaming "Don't put your feet down!". He leans all wrong and isn't holding on. As we ride I'm giving instructions. "Hold on", "we're coming to a stop sign, I'm going to stop, don't put your feet down, lean forward."
Now you have to understand...this is Friday night around 8:30pm in the club district. The cops are everywhere.
By some miracle we make it home. We stand in the garage arguing. "I'm going to go get the Lammy and push it home." I love men. I say, "No, you're going to listen to me. I am going to go to the Lammy and chain it up with a gazillion chains and all will be well 'til morning."
I don't know how I convinced him, but I did. He went home; I went off to the Lammy.
I get near to where we left it and pull up on the sidewalk. The street turns one-way the wrong way, so I thought I would park and walk to the scoot. And lucky me, there's a cop in a car sitting and waiting.
I grab my two chains and walk over to the cop. "Hey, I'm going to go chain up the scoot." He responds, "Uh, I wouldn't leave it there. Can you move it here (it's about 100 feet difference) where it will be in the light. It's bad down here; those idiots will steal anything." This is the copy telling me this. I said, "Sure, I can push it up here." "You can push it?" He asked me THREE TIMES like I'm some weakling (nice being a girl, eh?!).
So now I'm freaked about leaving it 'cos the cop said it's a crap area (which I already knew). And God forbid it get stolen...I'd never hear the end of "you should have let me push it." So I go and try to kick start it and it starts after the second kick. I think, hmmm, maybe I should lock up my Buddy and ride the Lammy home. Then I'll get someone to bring me back to pick up the Buddy.
So I try my crazy "New York busta rhymes" lock and the key won't open it. It's been acting up, so I switched to my b/f's lame-o kryptonite cable. I locked up the Buddy and tried again to kickstart the Lammy.
Now the Lammy is old...fifty years old to be exact. The kickstart metal hinge thing comes off all the time. And yes, it came off tonight. I picked it up and dumped it into the milkcrate on my Buddy. I then proceeded to pushstart the Lammy...running down the street in first gear (clutch in) and then letting the clutch out as I gave it gas. Vroom, off it goes with me flying behind it. It took me a few times to realize I just have to jump on it when I let go of the clutch. Give it some gas, and off we go.
The ride home isn't long, but there are A LOT of stop signs and red lights. I take to coasting through the stop signs because when I go to stop, the engine craps out and I have to pushstart again. It's nighttime, it's a crap neighborhood, and I'm sweating like crazy in my jacket.
I come to one stop sign where two cops are talking with a bunch of neighbors on the street. I think, "Man, I better come to a real stop or something bad might happen." So I stop and *konk konk*.
Now the two cops and the neighbors all want to help. I yell over "Oh no worries; drunk b/f is already home, I'm just bringing home his scoot." One of the neighbors asks if I've run out of gas. Ahh, I think to myself, the fuel tap. It's supposed to be in some position. I remember the b/f saying the fuel tap is his security against someone stealing the scoot because if it's not on the right way, no fuel. Of course I can't remember the right way because I get confused between the Vespa P, the Rabbit and the Lammy.
I wave at the cops and neighbors, mess with the tap, and run and push again. I'm getting good at this! I decide I'm not going to stop at lights or stop signs anymore. I'm dripping in sweat and I just want to get home.
Hooray! I make it home and park the Lammy. I run to the house to confirm b/f is home and safe (he's trying to take his jeans off over his boots). Good, I think. He won't go riding.
I run over to my neighbor Ron and lucky me, he's actually sitting in his car. I yell (I'm wearing my ff helmet), "Hey Ron, can you bring me downtown to pick up my scoot?". I get in and off we go. This is going great!
We get to the scoot and try to unlock it. I try with the key. Ron tries with the key. I swear we tried for fifteen minutes to unlock this frigging thing and we couldn't get it unlocked. Now we're both sweating. He calls another neighbor and asks if he has a bolt cutter.
"I'll call you back in 15," was the response. So we drive back home and I call yet another neighbor. "Hey Beth, you don't have bolt cutters, do you?" Her reply, "No, but I can ask Paul. Umm, why do you need them." I told her what's going on and she offered to call AAA.
Meanwhile I called yet another neighbor (we're very close on my street) to ask if he had bolt cutters and he did! He said give him 5 minutes to bring them down.
Beth calls back and AAA can do nothing (if the scoot is locked to something they can't help) but she offered to call our local district cop to ask if any of his guys could help (I know him, but I don't have his cell like she does...hmmmm). I said don't bother him 'cos Uncle Brian can lend us bolt cutters (no relation, everyone just calls him that because there are so many Brians on the street).
Uncle Brian delivers the bolt cutters and seems really preoccupied. I said to him that his night can't be worse than mine, to which he replied, "wanna bet?".
Ron drove me back (yet again) to my Buddy. He tries to cut the cable and nothing. He tries again and again and the grip on the cutters wasn't small enough. He finally comes up with some twisty thing that eventually cuts through. FREE AT LAST!
As we're celebrating, the same cop who was wondering if I could push the Lammy comes driving up. He's curious what we're doing with bolt cutters. Now Ron is a 6'2" black guy from Haiti. I rush up to the car and effuse "Oh Officer, you'd be so proud of me. I managed to ride the Lammy home and when I came back to get the Buddy, Ron and I couldn't get the lock open, so we had to go back home and get bolt cutters. But we got the lock off and I'm going to go for a nice long ride."
Now come on...bolt cutters. Cut lock? This is why I love Providence. The response was congrats that I got the Lammy home and have a wonderful ride (by now it's 10.00pm and this has been going for 2 hours).
I thanked Ron and said "I'm taking the looooong way home."
I headed on down to the Bay near the Rhode Island Yacht Club because it's a great ride (no traffic, slow) and stopped right next to the Club. I didn't think there'd be anyone there, but there were a slew of Spanish-speaking guys fishing and hanging out. I'm sure they thought I was nuts when I plopped myself down on the seawall in my pink jacket and just sat and looked over the water. I let the wind cool me, the waves calm me, and I marveled at the lights from the Mt Hope bridge in the distance. It was just what I needed.
I scoot home, park the Bud in the garage next to the Lammy, and head to the house. As I'm heading up the stairs I think, hmm, I wonder if I left the fuel tap on. But I wouldn't know because I have no idea what position it's supposed to be in and it kept snapping back to horizontal.
I checked on the b/f and he managed to get the jeans off and the boots off, so that was good. I decided not to quiz him on the fuel tap positioning and let him sleep (with NPR blaring in the background).
I went to the computer to share this escapade and as I began to write it up, two cop cars came racing down the street with their searchlights on. My block is VERY close and no one calls the cops on neighbors; if there's a problem we solve it face to face (and there's rarely a problem).
Someone must have called because they roar up in front of the house where Uncle Brian (of bolt cutter fame) lives with his neice, her husband and 3 girls. Things haven't been the best since the husband's return from Iraq and the officers were trying to sort things out.
My selfish thought was: the scoots are all safe & sound in the garage. I am proud of myself for getting the Lammy home. I have never ridden it more than up and down the street (it's his, not mine) and we've only had it a few weeks (to excuse my ignorance of fuel tap position). As I was riding it in the dark, shifting smoothly and running red lights, I thought to myself, I can ride f------ing anything.
Of course reality will hit tomorrow when the fuel is all over the garage floor. But at least I won't have the b/f's hangover!
Here's the Lammy I drove home in the dark with no headlight, no tail light, no turn signals and no stopping!
The only thing missing from that story was a high speed police chase (A good thing to be missing in your story's case) 
