Hog Heaven

     As I had mentioned earlier, Rooster, a die-hard Harley man, is on a mission to get Sissey out on the road for a run on his bike. He has been working diligently on Phase One, modifying his Harley for Sissey so that I will give the thumbs up for him to SAFELY take her on a ride. Yesterday, he implemented Phase Two of the plan.  At 11:00 a.m., he arrived at Gans and Pop's backdoor decked out head-to-toe in his finest Harley attire: black leather vest emblazoned with the Harley-Davidson logo across the back, a row of assorted biker pins attached to the front, Harley cap, Harley belt, Harley sunglasses. If I hadn't known it was Rooster, I might have shot him on the spot having mistaken him for a Hell's Angel, but underneath all that tough-guy leather, it was still just sweet old Rooster. He was there to pick up Sissey in his truck (thankfully not his bike) and take her to the Harley shop in Rock Hill. That was where Phase Two of the plan kicked in. 
     Rooster was convinced that not only would Sissey love roaring through town on the back of his bike, but that one day she would be roaring through town driving her own modified three-wheel hog. Purple, of course. With glitter. If only he could get her up to the Harley showroom and let her see those three wheelers, sit in one, smell the leather of the seats, see the gleaming chrome, touch the handlebars, hear the engine rev...that was all it would take to get her hooked as a Lady of Harley.
     So off they went, just the two of them, armed with a box of Zebra cakes (Rooster's favorites), Sissey's blue walker perched in the bed of Rooster's blue truck, two souls off on a mission to Hog Heaven.
    When they arrived home several hours later, the first thing Sissey announced when she walked in the door was, "That place is expensive!"  I think she was as shocked as I to learn that one of those little three-wheelers would set her back about thirty grand.  That's a lot of Coach pocketbooks and Starbuck's Latte's down the drain. Try as he could, Rooster could not talk her into buying anything at the high-priced Harley store, although she did spend some time scoping out the three-wheelers.
     Trying to lure me into the world of Harley, Rooster assured me that the bikes could be adjusted so that all the controls were hand-operated and that it would have automatic transmission and a passenger seat.  He could not assure me, however, that it would come with a crash-proof, bullet-proof, unbreakable, air-bag surrounded, shatterproof bubble that would completely encase the driver.  I tried to envision the two of us taking off for USC-L on a three-wheeler, just me and Sissey, chatting back and forth through the antennae of the radio-controlled XM Stereo which was embedded in our purple-glitter helmets. We would slide into the parking lot of the school on her purple hog, wearing our black leather pants and matching jackets, with "Lady of Harley"  and "USC-L Harley-MOM" embroidered across the back.  I'm not sure it was a good look. Plus, I didn't know where we would put the walker and the backpack for the ride over, and I was afraid my Bubba-keg of coffee wouldn't fit in the bike's cup holder.
     Not only that, but she would have to get ANOTHER driver's license...one specifically for motorcycle drivers.  We won't go into the whole history of "Sissey  Learns To Drive", but just believe me when I say it was no piece of cake getting License #1.  Besides, I do not think I could endure another nervous breakdown in the parking lot of DMV. The first one was pretty embarrassing. When Sissey safely pulled back into the parking lot after her road test, only to find me crying hysterically behind the bushes in front of the DMV office, she was tempted to just keep on driving, far, far away. Fortunately, her dad was there as well, so she preserved some of her dignity by getting in the car with him and pretending she had never met that crazy woman in the bushes. The thought of having to go through that whole process again, especially to get a license to drive a vehicle that comes with no safety features, no air bags or roll bars or armored plates, uh-huh, I don't think so.
     I'm not too worried about Sissey becoming a Harley gal, though, because her brother and father have to weigh in on that decision. I can tell  you right now what those two will have to say about that-- they being of the mindset that Rapunzel had a pretty good deal locked safely up in that tower, isolated from all the dangers of the world, untouchable in her turret. Letting Sissey cut loose on the highway on a Harley was going to happen just about the time hell froze over, and with all the concerns about global warming and melting polar ice caps, I figured the odds were pretty good we weren't headed in that direction.
      So for now, Rooster will have to be content with just taking Sissey for a short run around the block, with speeds no greater than 10 MPH, on a clear Sunday morning between the hours of 11 and 12, on a sunny spring day with temperatures settling around 85 degrees, with all the stars and planets correctly aligned in the cosmos, and with a host of heavenly angels hovering nearby.  With much prayer and intensive group therapy, the odds are pretty good I would agree to that.