Act On It

I was really peeved last fall when my ex-boyfriend went out and bought a motorcycle about five minutes after I said I was thinking about getting one. After all, I'm the one who watches "Sons of Anarchy" with near religious zeal. I'm the one whose 80-year-old dad just bought his second Harley. I'm the one with disposable income, a free spirit, a love of the open road, and a rebellious streak about ten kilometers wide. I've been saying I'm going to get a motorcycle some day for the past twenty years. How dare he beat me to it?

After fuming about it for an unbecoming amount of time, I came to my senses. (A) This is neither a reality TV show nor a competitive sport - though wouldn't it be funny if it was? The crazy middle-aged person who can demonstrate the depth and breadth of a midlife crisis the fastest wins an all expenses paid first class trip in a Humvee limo to the Emergency Room - deluxe private suite included! And (B) I've been all talk and no action for more than two decades. I was jealous of his spontaneity, his confident follow-through - and right at the onset of winter, no less.

This is what my drop looked like - inside my head.

It was pretty friendly of him to let me take his bike for a spin on the Richland Mall's rooftop parking lot four months later. It'd been more than a decade since my dad gave me that crash course on his first hallowed Harley, so I was a tad unsteady and nervous. Nevertheless, I tooled around on my ex-turned-boy-pal's Vulcan and got it up to a whopping 15 miles an hour. Then I braked to a stop and dropped it. He was a really good sport about the dented mirror and the fuel leaking everywhere. As he pulled the bike upright and waded through the gas puddle, he was actually grinning. "What did you think? You want one now, don't you?"

What I wanted was to cave to the fear that I didn't know what I was doing, that I'm too small and weak to hold a motorcycle upright, and that I should forget about this ridiculous fantasy of mine once and forever. But that would mean going down in history as She-Who-Was-All-Talk-And-No-Action - by far the least appealing choice. Thus, the intoxicating mixture of his enthusiasm and my fear inspired me to sign up for a weekend long beginner's course that very night. Then I got myself a learner's permit and googled "Top Ten Motorcycles for Short Women."

There would be action, by god, and slightly less talk.