Motorcycle Stories

Evel Kongevel

I can’t figure people out. When they find out I ride a motorcycle, they feel compelled to tell me stories about mayhem, death and destruction that involves someone they knew. They fall into two categories: the smartass and the tale teller.


The smartass will start with the following question:

Ass: Do you know what emergency room doctors called bikers?
Me: No (although I know exactly what this fucktard is going to say)
Ass: Organ Donors

I half smile and nod my head as to reinforce the smug satisfaction of this asshole. The conversation should have gone like this :

Ass: Do you know what emergency room doctors called bikers?
Me: Hmmmm let me guess…organ donors. Amiright. Am I? Do you really think you are the first clever fucktard to ask me that question? Do you think you “got me” with your hackneyed half-assed line of bullshit? You aren’t, so FUCK OFF!

The second type is the Tale Teller. This is the idiot who wants to tell you about their friend’s cousin who was riding his vintage Panhead one night, swerved onto the shoulder and struck a flatbed. Of course he was decapitated and his head ended up on the top of the smokestack while his arms were still clutching the handlebars. The story is a grotesquerie designed to both titillate and shock. They have no reason to tell it to you other than to hope you recoil in horror at the very thought. What they don’t tell you, is that the guy in question was drunk as a skunk, riding down an unlit road in the middle of nowhere with a headlight that put out fewer lumens than a tealight.

While they are expecting either a sympathetic reaction or one of horror, I replied with: “who got his Panhead?” Why not. It’s not like he’s going to be using it anytime soon. That was a true story by the way as is the story of the guy riding home from work at night and hitting a tree someone had dropped across the road as a prank. He was sober, though.

Fuck this, I'm outta here!

I’m not sure why people feel compelled to tell me these stories. If someone tells me they like backpacking I don’t say “I have a friend whose cousin loved backpacking but one day he went out and was attacked by a pissed-off Honey Badger who chewed off his nose while he was still alive. The horror.”

Nor do I have conversations like this:

Me: So you like canoeing?
Other person: I love it

Me:  Great. You know my cousin’s friends went canoeing somewhere in Georgia and were gang-raped by a band of toothless hillbillies. They still can’t sit for very long, and don’t EVER play the banjo around them.

I don’t say these things to people because it’s not polite. I just nod and smile and run through these scenarios in my head. Maybe I should just tell them the truth just to shatter their sense of smug satisfaction. Maybe I should just punch these people in the nuts, or maybe they should just shut the fuck up!