Sunday. Bloody, Sunday

 

So, It's Saturday. The one after the day killers gave me a deposit on the "Susuki". The official 7 day deadline of holding onto a bike that I just want GONE from my life. Again It's not worth anything and frankly the only reason I'm charging money for it, is because a lifetime of lessons showed me that anything attempted to be given for 'free' is perceived as worth less than that, and therefore impossible to rid yourself of. Oh! nice Ferrari! Free? No thanks.. ?? Listen to me, I'm always right. Oh crap. I got this thing a decade ago. 'For free'

Do I blame the bike? Drugs? Vanilla Ice? I know I could keep the stinky $100 bills the Methhead handed me and just re-sell the thing to someone else, and I'm SURE there's another story there too, but what could possibly go wrong?

This binary wheeled pinnacle of 80's style and technology has been sitting in the bed of my El Camino, Josephine Dirté, for a week now as my personal give-a-shit meter is solidly planted on the zero peg. Tap, tap, tap. Nope. Still zero. Some giant bird left it's digested dinner on the tank and I can't be bothered to give it a swipe with a dry rag, much less the wet end of a hose. Ol' Josephine doesn't care its back there, I have the key stuck in it, barely strapped in, and the ramp laying next to it is just begging for even a barely ambitious dirtbag to give the 'possession is 9/10th's' speech to a unamused civil servant. 

Allow me to digress, and follow me now as I back track though time to last weeks meeting with this couple (when they both had hair on their heads). I had made it a repeated and loud point to tell Meth that this is just a parts bike, not registered for a decade and if he had ANY intention of putting it on the street he should go to dmv.ca.gov with the vin from the ad, and find out what the registration will cost. I had him take a pic of the Vin, the plate, and the title. Because California wants it's goddamn money, and you sir are gonna pay. Curiosity overcame me the following day and I checked the DMV myself. Well its been out of reg for 10 years BUT happily California only counts fee's and penalties for only 3 years, Whew! Wanna guess? For a motorcycle? A $700, 23 year old motorcycle? Just 3 years of fee's? WRONG!

Registration Period: Jun 26, 2013 - Jun 26, 2021
Current Registration: 59.00
Current California Highway Patrol: 27.00
Current Vehicle License Fee: 1.00
Current Motorcycle Safety Fee: 2.00
Current County Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies Fee: 1.00
Current Fingerprint ID Fee: 1.00
Current Air Quality Management District: 6.00
Current South Coast Air Basin: 1.00
Alt Fuel/Tech Reg Fee: 9.00
1st Prior Year Registration: 57.00
1st Prior Year California Highway Patrol: 26.00
1st Prior Year Vehicle License Fee: 1.00
1st Prior Year Motorcycle Safety Fee: 2.00
1st Prior Year County Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies Fee: 1.00
1st Prior Year Fingerprint ID Fee: 1.00
Current Vehicle Theft/DUI 2: 2.00
1st Prior Year Vehicle Theft/DUI 2: 2.00
2nd Prior Year Vehicle Theft/DUI 2: 2.00
1st Prior Year Air Quality Management Dist: 6.00
1st Prior Year South Coast Air Basin: 1.00
2nd Prior Year Registration: 55.00
2nd Prior Year California Highway Patrol: 25.00
2nd Prior Year Vehicle License Fee: 1.00
2nd Prior Year Motorcycle Safety Fee: 2.00
2nd Prior Year County Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies Fee: 1.00
2nd Prior Year Fingerprint ID Fee: 1.00
2nd Prior Year Air Quality Management Dist: 6.00
2nd Prior Year South Coast Air Basin: 1.00
Current Transportation Improvement Fee: 27.00
Transportation Improvement Fee 1st Prior Year: 25.00
Transportation Improvement Fee 2nd Prior Year: 25.00
Transfer: 15.00
Use/Sales Tax: 67.00
Current Registration Penalty: 30.00
CHP Penalty: 180.00
Current Vehicle License Fee Penalty: 1.00
1st Prior Year Registration Penalty: 50.00
1st Prior Year Vehicle License Fee Penalty: 1.00
2nd Prior Year Registration Penalty: 100.00
2nd Prior Year Vehicle License Fee Penalty: 2.00
Total Registration Fees: $756.00
Total Use/Sales Tax: $67.00
Grand Total Registration Fees: $823.00

THEN 2022 reg for about $145. 72* and sunny here ain't cheap buddy.

$968. NINE. HUNDRED. AND. SIXTY. EIGHT. FUCKING. DOLLARS. Well, that settles it. He's screwed (and I'm moving to another state).

Back on track and truth be told, I feel a nagging amount of mechanical sympathy (empathy?) for dreams unrealized with this poor turd. I'm one in a long row of disillusioned idiots that thought this was worth a bit more than 'free', and I get to thankfully pass it to another idiot in the line.

4:30PM Saturday
Meth: "Hey, I can come by tonight or tomorrow, whichever is good for you."
Me: Ok, tonight 
Meth: "Tomorrow would be better" 
(Sigh)
Me: Ok, 11am tomorrow, same address. 

(and that makes it Sunday. Easter Sunday.)

10:52am Easter Sunday
Meth: "I'm running a little late. I had to wait for my girl. We're a half hour away"
Me: OK
[Over three hours later]
2:10PM
Me: It's been 3 hours and you're fucking up my Easter plans.
[No response, then...]
2:52pm
Meth: "We just arrived! I apologize"

Now, I KNOW what you are screaming right now. I know! I call it 'Student of Human Nature' and you, dear reader, very accurately are calling me a masochist. Semantics aside, I took the razor to my wrist and cruised by the rooftop parking lot just to see if they really showed. Low and behold, they are there and in an actual truck. This should only take a minute (as I dig the razor deeper into my vein).

I get the obligatory apologies that never matter and I don't need, she's now wearing a Rasta wig, and he's got a neck gaiter thing pulled up over the back of his head, under his hat. Both are shaved bald now and I'm seriously freaking sweating with the effort to not to ask (still nervously holding the razor to my wrist). I answer all the same questions about ill-advisedly getting this junk shithole of a parts bike to be ridable, I field the question of "should I buy $85/gallon of racing oil for it" with Um, No? Don't spend 10% of the total cost of this motorcycle for just 4 quarts of oil, and didn't DARE ask if he looked up the registration cost like I told him too. 

    He has to pick his fingers into the hole of his long gone Chevy tailgate handle to release the tailgate... and it promptly falls completely off, spilling a large portion of the random shit out of the bed and onto the parking lot. Massive pile of shit. That not only describes whats in the bed, but the truck itself. The one I told him to spend his motorcycle money on to fix. Theres junk wheels, tires, literal trash, a magic carpet, and oddly nice ripe apples? Just loosely rolling around. Mmmm, truck apples.

Meth keeps distracting himself from counting $20 bills by saying things like "I really don't like flames"

Hmm, you don't say?

He finally gives up trying to count up to 24, and hands the small stack of bills to his Rasta wig wearing girlfriend who does a fine job of counting (without even taking off her shoes). Business done, all we need to do is fit a 500lb motorcycle somewhere in this reclamation facility of a vehicle. We? You caught that? Ya I know I am a Student of... aw fuck-it. 

I've loaded a bike or two (hundred) in my time. Wrecked, wet, broken, you name it, and I was all of those things too. It's my mechanical empathy that forced me to help this poor guy. Oh, and he didn't bring a ramp?

But Mister $85 per gallon synthetic racing oil hoity toity moth fukle DID bring a $17 4-pack of Home Depot bottom line ratchet straps to tie this bitch down. Well thank God for foresight. Meth even has the balls to ask "are you sure your motorcycle ramp will take the weight?" The one you just watched me unload it with!? JESUS of all thats fucking Holy, CHRIST! You are making me blaspheme on the day he is risen while the candy filled plastic eggs I got from a giant rabbit melt and my beer is getting warm! What in the ever loving FUCK would you do without my HELp! You time-sucking, life draining whirlwind of madness! and WHYYYYYY in the ninth circle of HELL are you both BALD now?!? (I said on the inside). 

"Ya bro, it's cool."

They emptied most of the seagull nest out of the bed, rolled the truck halfway out the driveway, tires in the gutter (un-ironically, I thought), Meth's tailgate stayed connected to his truck just long enough, and 'we' only smashed one truck apple in the process! I took that as my get-out opportunity, tossed the ramp in my now thankfully empty bed and bailed, fast.

But... curiosity. 

I went home, washed my truck, took a shower, went to go get gas, hit the ATM, and just HAD to swoop past the shop, just to see... yep. Still there. Still halfway in the street. He may have heard the Flowmasters from Ol' Josephine, the may have even tried to wave me over, but ya know? He'd already been set on "ignore" for an hour, and my give-a-shit meter still hasn't budged.