MoRonIc 12-5-06

By Mo-

I can't begin to describe how excited I was at the mere thought of extracting a $10 late fee from Ron Bolds--for it appeared certain. You could feel the low rumble, the nearly audible buzz as word circulated among the assembling crew on the side of the road. Like a rumor at a bike race that Aja's fabulous butt would be attending, the people's ear's perked up--they stopped in their tracks--they blinded the rumor provider with their headlight by forgetting everything--manners, common courtesy, their own names--"What? What did you just say? Ron is going to be late?" This common reaction was most often followed by a slack-jawed look of stupification, morphing into a slow, calm joy. They knew that it was too delicate and fleeting a hope to grasp too tightly--one of those life-changing dreams that slips, slips, slips away the more you want to know and savor it--so, they remained composed and continued to ready themselves, though infused with a new life force.

People, I have never, ever, been so disappointed to see a particular human being as I was to see Ron Bolds last night at 6:22. Yes, he is just a man--but this one man shattered the dreams of so many. Wait, what was that noise? Oh, right. Just the sound of the life force draining out of 15 riders and their phones flipping open to call in that new Prozac prescription.

-sigh-.

Anyway, it's hard to go on at this point, but on I must go...the list, I'll try to do the list whilst I recover my composure. Ron (again, *sigh*), Dana, Chris, Bruce, Russell, Amy, Fuzzy, Lorna, Jackie, Pete, Craig, Bob, Dr. Mike, Karen and Jon. Some weird time warp/parallel universe thing happened and Karen wasn't late--I'm still suspicious though--it was just too weird. She was, however, late enough that Jon couldn't change his clothes and chose to ride in Carthart's as opposed to getting a late fee. Too funny. God forgive me if I have forgotten anyone.

So we got this crew going and the moon was rising over the ridge as we set off and it made us all feel fortunate. Cold, but fortunate. Layers came off pretty quick as we climb, climb, climbed. I climbed like a three-toed sloth on valium. It is my understanding that a super-motivated sloth (kind of an oxymoron*) can move approximately 20 meters an hour on a flat surface. Yup, that's me. Now for my treatise on “What Motivates a Three-Toed Sloth”...just kidding.

The views were amazing. We got to the top (finally!) and some mind bending occurred. I was too darned late to revel in the shock of it all, but the people got to "the spot" and it was on fire. Well, Hallelujah if that wasn't okay cause it was SET BY FIREMEN!!!! Holy Smokes! There were like 17 of them, plus 15 of us, that's like 22 or 19.5 or something! More fingers than Mo's even GOT! I knew two of them, Ron knew one of them, Karen knew them all by the time we left....(ooops! that was an "inside thought"!). They were partaking of the substances, and we all mingled and jingled and shared liquids of joy. There were many thermoses full of hot yummy things, Pete's "ain't no beer snob" 40 ouncers of MGD and the like, and of course Mr. Killjoy-No-Late-Ever brought peppermint Schnapps which he had a little trouble properly administering--he thinks if flames ain't burnin' your nose hairs within 2 inches of the vapor, it just ain't TNR material (boy was HE hammered by the end of the night!).

We headed down and I lost my light to the night, but if ever there was a night to lose one's light, it was that night. The moon was brilliantly brillianting and being generally fatherly. We ran into (bad choice of words) some broken down firemen on the descent, one fixing a flat at a...well, slothlike pace, covered in dirt (sloth!) from a previous crash, looking happy in his slowness, with a large rock firmly wedged in his helmet. Man, that was classic. Glue that sucker in when you get home.

We got down, had some beer provided by the Bobfather, and headed for the Drum. What fun. Youse guys are da best!