{"id":1216,"date":"2011-07-05T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2015-08-11T10:44:48","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T14:44:48","slug":"the-withering-stare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=1216","title":{"rendered":"The Withering Stare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I rode my Harley to my brother&#8217;s home yesterday for a crab feast.  I saw the family, had some crabs, gave a few kiddos who were dressed appropriately (long pants, closed-toe shoes) a ride on &#8220;big bad Uncle&#8217;s Harley,&#8221; had a few more crabs, gave a sister a ride on the Harley (which was a hoot to watch), then picked out a half-dozen crabs and put them in a bag to take home for my partner, and took off. (He doesn&#8217;t go to gatherings of my family because he prefers quiet &#8212; and my family [bless their souls] aren&#8217;t &#8220;quiet&#8221; by any means.)<\/p>\n<p>As I was riding home, I stopped at a red signal.  I noticed the headlight of another bike in my left mirror. This dude, who couldn&#8217;t have been more than 25, rolled up next to me on a beautiful Harley. Unfortunately, the kid was wearing shorts and flip flops.  On a Harley!  Arrrrggghh!<\/p>\n<p>I turned and gave that guy a really long, hard, stare.  I pointed to those things on his feet, and mouthed the words, &#8220;flip-flops?  Are you kidding?&#8221; then did one of those gestures that in America means &#8220;crazy&#8221; &#8212; circling the finger while pointing to the head.<\/p>\n<p>The kid just sat there, pretending not to notice, but I saw him look down at his feet then back at me then try to look away.<\/p>\n<p>I noticed that the light was seconds from turning green, so I pulled in the clutch, dropped the transmission into first gear, and as the light changed, slowly let out the clutch for a smooth take-off.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, at the same time the kid noticed me getting ready to take off, he also put his bike in gear, but I think he forgot to pull in the clutch, or didn&#8217;t pull it all the way &#8212; anyway, he stalled his bike!  The bike jerked a few cm forward, then died.  <\/p>\n<p>I hate to admit it, but I just about fell off my own bike laughing.  <\/p>\n<p>Goes to show &#8216;ya, the Biker Lords exist &#8212; perhaps the kid learned a lesson.  Minimally, it&#8217;s not to pretend to be a cool biker and ride up on a motorcycle next to me and try to get by wearing shorts and flip-flops without my noticing.  Withering stares work!  LOL!<\/p>\n<p>Life is short:  real bikers wear long pants and boots.  No exceptions.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I rode my Harley to my brother&#8217;s home yesterday for a crab feast. I saw the family, had some crabs, gave a few kiddos who were dressed appropriately (long pants, closed-toe shoes) a ride on &#8220;big bad Uncle&#8217;s Harley,&#8221; had &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=1216\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorcycle-boots","category-motorcycle-ride"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}