My brother is getting married in November, a date that seemed so long in coming (there were some who doubted it would ever happen) and now not far enough away. There’s only so much time to prepare for a wedding, and never enough. So this past weekend, the groom and his wedding party — his compatriot, George, and myself — got serious about what we would wear and ventured south to Tampa for suit fitting.A road trip to be groped.
Why Tampa? Because Tampa is home. Tampa is where tradition began and continues to this day. Tampa is where my mother lives (and no clothing decisions will be made without her on penalty of never hearing the end of it). Tampa is where people know we’re crazy, accept that fact and do business with us anyway. (Most of the blame for this lies with my mother who doesn’t believe she’s getting her money’s worth until she’s caused gray hair to pop out of a salesman’s head.)
“Isn’t this fun?” she asks, a big wild-monkey grin stretched across her face while the other employees are running out the back door and the owner is considering a new security device that will warn them when my mother is in the vicinity. She asks too many questions, nitpicks, makes bad jokes and complicates simple things, like “So, how will you be paying?”
How can that one question take 20 minutes to answer?
To get there, the three of us had to make a road trip, and I can tell you there’s nothing quite like spending 3 hours in a car with Scott and George, a couple of vintage motorcycle enthusiasts who like to grumble, roll cigarettes and tell stories that often begin with, “So, as the gasoline tank caught fire while I pulled into traffic ”
I got to hear about the big motorcycle rally they’re going to in North Carolina where they plan to enter a race for beer coolers that have been converted into mini-motorcycles.
Scott and George have been planning, tinkering and building non-stop for weeks for the race that seems to have few rules or guidelines, besides that the cooler has to actually hold a 12-pack of beer with ice. In addition, finishing the race with all the body parts you started with is encouraged, but not mandatory. “And Eddie’s knuckle wins. Now call the rest of him an ambulance.”
Anything can happen with a souped-up beer cooler consisting of an untested engine and a bike frame with tires.
“You know, George,” I said to the designated driver. “It sounds to me like you’re pretty much going to die.”
“Yeah,” he said with resignation in his voice. “But it’ll look cool.”
Guys up where my brother works want them to name the vehicle “Exhibit A.”
Take a road trip with these fellas and you get a lot of talk like that, as well as really loud music and convenience store taquitos at 9:30 in the morning. I don’t know what a taquito is, except that I don’t think there is any hour of the day when you should eat them. You’ll eat a lot of convenience store food with them, from pork chunks that have been jerky-ed to sweet-n-hot roasted nuts that make the whole car smell like a fermenting garbage can sitting in the sun.
What better road trip could you ask for: Trying on expensive clothes, eating food that will pickle your insides, losing your hearing, losing total control of your mother and hanging with three guys who could make a dentist equipment seminar feel like Las Vegas. Now if only I could get the smell of those damn nuts out of my clothes.