Meeting Ty Pennington

Ty Pennington bought a scooter from my boyfriend. I don't even watch Extreme Makeover anymore (the show just won't end until everybody cries), but I made Boyfriend take my camera to work with him on the day Ty came and picked it up. Yes, his coworkers made fun of him.

Here is the bike while they were still building it.

Then Ty had them modify it 24 rear-view mirrors. Each mirror doesn't actually serve a purpose, and your lane-splitting days are over. Sounds narcissistic, but this kind of modification is pretty popular.

Ty and the final product.

When Boyfriend asked Ty if he could get a picture of him for his girlfriend (me!), Ty said, "Sure!" and opened his arm for Boyfriend to come stand with him. Then Boyfriend goes, "Not me. The bike," completely insulting him. Boyfriend took this picture and then Ty never spoke to him again.

Which is why this pic is so far away:



True story.

A Christmas Miracle

Going green this Christmas, I decided to do all of my Christmas shopping on the scooter. My pink knit hat firmly placed under my helmet and scarf tucked in my sweater and jacket, I zipped around the city for my various errands. My favorite moment was driving between construction cones to the sounds of angry drivers honking as I dodged traffic and parked on the sidewalk in front of the Fox to get my tickets to the Nutcracker.

A couple of soft toys purchased at IKEA, shirt boxes and all sorts of unimaginable crap from Target, and wine from Trader Joe's—everything was crammed below the seat of the bike or hanging from the bag hooks below the handle bars. I had done well. One stop at the bank to deposit a check and I dashed home.

Only when I got in front of my apartment building, I couldn't get inside the gate. I couldn't get inside my gate because I couldn't find my wallet, where my gate card was tucked away. I hopped off the scooter and dug through my bags and nothing. No wallet and no keys. The last time I saw my wallet was at the bank...

I have never ridden a scooter so hard and so fast in my life as I did from my apartment building back to the bank.

I searched through the parking lot and didn't find it. I thought back to everyone I saw walking around: the child who was picking up things off the ground and her mother, the movers unloading a pickup truck parked across the street. Someone probably saw it and snatched it. I don't carry cash, so I wasn't out any actual money. I just had to cancel my debit card, have my mother drive my replacement car keys to my apartment, and be out one loved Coach wallet.

Dejected, I called Boyfriend.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"I'm at the Wachovia on Juniper. I didn't see it on my way back, but a few of the roads are one-way, so I haven't retraced every step yet."

"Don't move. I'm on my way."

A couple of minutes later, Boyfriend pulled up next to me on his scooter. After lecturing me on the importance of zipping up your jacket pockets so things like wallets and cell phones don't fall out, he drove down Juniper looking for my wallet .

I had barely pulled out myself when he stopped in the middle of the road, reached down, and picked up my wallet and car keys off the road. There is was, laying in the middle of Juniper Street in Midtown untouched, save for a very distinctive tire mark across the front. I opened it up and everything was still inside.

It had been laying in the street for at least 10 minutes and no one stole it. It was a Christmas miracle.

Both literally and metaphorically

Boyfriend: I thought getting back into a relationship would be like riding a bike.
Jamie: Yes, Boyfriend, but we both wrecked.

The Girlfriend Chronicles: Day 3

Boyfriend called today. Managed to wreck his scooter as well. Asked him if he was okay and said no, so left work early to possibly take him to ER. Instead found him at local tattoo parlor getting another tattoo while he was waiting on me. Said he wouldn't feel anything anyways.

Boyfriend may be crazy.

Friends can't stop laughing at 2 of us as story has now come full circle. His wounds are identical to mine. Bet we look awesome together as mine haven't healed yet. People will wonder who is beating whom. Boyfriend made remark about how smug I feel right now. He's right. This brings his scooter wrecking total to 5 against my 1.

I win.

Wrecked

The salesman, feeling responsible, has called me every afternoon to see how I'm doing. I have more large black bruises than I have fingers and toes. I limp. I can't stand or even cross my legs without pain. Advil and I have become close buddies. So has an additional chair in my cubicle that I prop both my legs on. While my right leg doesn't have the massive bruise that stretches down my calf like the left one, it has several brothers and sisters who are just as angry.

"I'm okay," I tell him. "I ate dinner last night and passed out before 8 p.m. I think I slept a lot of it off. Now I'm just sore."

"Are you taking anti-inflammatories for your knee?"

"By the threes."

"Good. That's prescription strength and that's what you need to be on."

"I went out to lunch yesterday and I scooted my chair up to the table as I sat down. My knee lightly bumped into the chair that was already scooted in and I just cried out and laid my head down on the table it hurt so badly."

"See, that's your problem. You're still scooting. No more scooting for you until you get healed up," he laughed.

It hit me that this Sunday is Father's Day, and I'm expected to show up at my father's house. For his pool party. I don't know how else to explain what I look like in place of the truth--because I literally look like I got run over by a scooter.

He knew that I was looking at them, and he was a proponent for me getting one; he just doesn't know that I laid it down. It's not this that bothers me so much. It's his reaction when I tell him I still want one.

I would like to tell you a story called "Too Much Front Brake."

As he promised, the salesman called Tuesday while I was at work. I told him how I basically sold myself on the idea, "But it's a lifestyle change, and I want be sure this is something I would enjoy, but I need more than a couple minutes in a parking lot on a scooter."

So he told me to come by after the shop had closed for the evening and he and I would go for a ride together.

Sounds great, right?

I pulled up behind the shop and he had two scooters waiting: the one I would be buying and a cheap used one for, you know, just in case. He quizzed me on all the buttons, where the gas and each of the brakes were, and we drove out of the shop towards Piedmont Park.

We zipped through the little house-lined streets adjacent to the park. We came up on a stop sign and I began breaking, but it wasn't breaking as fast as I wanted it to. I don’t know what exactly happened: I think I used too much front brake and not enough back break, or maybe the wheel turned while I was using the front break, but in any case I laid the bike down, which is slang for wiping out.

Eating pavement.

Sprawled out on the road with the bike on top of me.

I tried to get up as quickly as I could, but my left foot and ankle were trapped under the 200-something pound machine. The salesman ran towards me, "What happened?"

"Too much front brake. Too much front brake," I stood there on the side of the road, doing my best Rain Man, "Definitely too much front brake."

"Are you okay?"

I pointed down to my leg and then shrugged, "I'm stuck," I said matter of factly. "I can't move my leg."

So he pulled it off of me and I gingerly put my foot down, and was surprised there wasn't any pain. I alternated each ankle and gently stood on the tips of my toes, and my foot was fine. My shirt and jeans were bloody and we quickly saw that my hand was bleeding where I tried to catch myself.

We stood there on the side of the road looking at each other and trying to figure out what to do about my hand, which was filling up with blood. I looked towards the front yard of a house to see if there is a leaf I could use, and he sort of looked at his shirt, tugging at the bottom and debating if he should offer it or not. However my hand wasn't cut or gashed, it was just missing several layers of skin.

"Just stick your hand in your pocket," he said. "Let the pocket soak up the blood."

So I did.

"Omigod, you're shaking."

"I shake naturally," I said, trying to play it off. And my hands do naturally shake, but it's much closer to a subtle quiver. Here I was standing wide-eyed and my whole body was shaking--my hands alone were jumping inches without my consent. "I always do this," I tried again. Yeah, if I had Parkinson's.

"Are you sure you're okay? You're shaking pretty badly."

"I'm fine," just really, really horrified. Thankfully, there were only two witnesses: the salesman and a guy walking his dog.

"Well if you want to climb on the back of mine..."

"Nope."

"You want to keep going?"

"Yup."

"Are you sure?"

"Yup." I stuck my hand in my pocket again so I could keep the amount of blood on the handle bar minimal. We took off again and I slightly panicked when I saw his left turn signal which would put us on Ponce.

Ponce de Leon during rush hour traffic.

There are several main veins in Atlanta: Peachtree Street, Piedmont Road, North Avenue, and Ponce de Leon Boulevard. This was it--real riding on a real road. With real cars. Like a white Malibu, for instance, who had no problem getting right up behind me.

I hate you, white Malibu.

We pulled into the shop and he led me directly into the bathroom where I ran my hand under the faucet until the black and red skin turned soft pink. Now that the ride was over, I began to shake again like I did right after the accident. My knee began to throb and felt puffy under the thin veil of my blue jeans. My shoes were missing entire chunks of leather.

"Look at you," he said half-laughing, half-concerned.

"Now we drink until I stop shaking," I informed him.

It took about four beers.

Scoot

I spent Saturday afternoon test driving Vespas. With gas prices expecting to reach $4 a gallon and my gas-hog of an SUV, I figured I could afford a scooter for tooling around the city with what I would be saving on gas.

My chipped-tooth and tattooed but cute-as-a-button salesmantook me into a parking lot and taught me how to drive the scooter... after I insisted on riding with him of course. Afterwards we sat together at the table and worked out some figures on paper.

"Well let me take this with me--I never jump into things so I need to think about it. And call me when you get the battery replaced on the used one. I'm interested in driving it."

"Okay, I'll give you a call on Tuesday. Wait, do I even have your number?"

"Nope."

"Well I was going to get it anyways. I'm a single guy, you know."

I laughed. And this is what I said (in all of my glory):

"Wow, you're trying really hard for the sale."

Sometimes, I have no game at all.

And when he calls on Tuesday, I'm resolved to let him know that non-scooter related phone calls would be okay as well.