the Forty Ninth Story

Before I had my own cross country ski equipment, I would run down to the EMS and rent a set for a day in the winter woods. There was this one time when things just weren't quite right, but I didn't realize till I was out in the woods, and being stubborn, I still went for a full day. I came home a bit sore, but these things generally take some time to sink in. I went to work the next day, and while things hurt a bit, I was pretty much ok all day. I wasn't doing anything real physical- just cutting apart a model car to make a maquete for a piece the guys were doing that would be an exploded view of an Indy 500 car. I left a little early, and sometime about halfway through my ride home my muscles started locking up. By the time I made it home, I was pretty much out. I was so out that I left my bike, freelocked, leaning on the side of the house, and that's pretty damned far gone, for anyone who hasn't seen me with my bike. I went in, and found the muscle relaxers I got when I first started forging. Now, I only ever took half of one of these things, as I'm extremely sensitive to most drugs, but I was already basically gone, and the idea of trying to cut one in half was just too much- so I took a whole one and went to bed. Dustin came home a few hours later, and, seeing my bike beside the house, knew something was up. He came in, and I was in bed. He asked me what had happened that day. In my drugged stupor, I waved my hand in the air and said "The car. It exploded." He asked for clarification and I, rather annoyed that such a clear statement could cause confusion, simply repeated, louder and slower "The car. It exploded". Dustin responded with the only appropriate thought "so, you won't be eating dinner?" and carried my bike in.

The Twenty fifth story

another day, another story. The Crab story is another installment from the beginning of Dustin and I's relationship. It is set in his old apartment. It starts with him at work and me at school- he called me up to say that he was at the grocery picking up food for dinner, and do I eat crab? Of course I eat crab. He picked me up on the way home, and when we got there, he went into his room to check his email. I stayed out in the kitchen, mucking around, maybe doing dishes or something. The window above the kitchen sink was open, and there was a breeze, still, the grocery bag seemed to be rustling a lot more than it should. I began to suspect there was something in there. The super 88 is a little sketchy, maybe there was a mouse in the vegies? I went into Dustin's room, and said something along the lines of "I think the grocery bag is moving". Dustin didn't really respond, so I went back out and continued with what I was doing. The bag was definitely moving. I went back into Dustin's room, and said that there was absolutely, for sure, something in the bag, and he needed to come check it. He sighed, and got up to go investigate. He opened the bag, looked in, and said that there was nothing in there but the crabs. I responded that I was SURE something was moving, and he said that the only thing moving was the crabs. Only then did it occur to me that the crabs would be alive in the kitchen. Only then did it occur to him that one might buy crabs that weren't alive.

I insisted on putting a brick on top of the pan when we cooked them, as I was SURE - despite knowing otherwise - that they would escape the pan, angry and wanting revenge. They were very tasty, but I told Dustin that if he wanted fresh crab again, he damned well have it dead and cooked before I arrived.

the eighth story

a longer story, today, but it's a good one. This is from a different trip to Thailand, though probably only a few miles from the other Thailand story.
Dustin and I were in Northern Thailand, and decided to rent a motorbike. We took it up the mountain to the temple we wanted to see, and on the way back down, decided to take a side trip to a waterfall mentioned in my guidebook. My guidebook was old, though, (from the first trip) and had already lead us astray several times, so all info from it was being taken as no more than a vague suggestion. The guidebook said the park the waterfall was in would cost about the equivalent of 20 bucks to enter, and that it closed at 5h30. We got to the park, and the gate was wide open, and the gatehouse unoccupied- further, it looked as though that gatehouse hadn't been opened in years. So, we continued on in, spent some time at the waterfall, and, when we were done, started back down.
The gate was closed, and really quite locked. I figured I had some cracker packets and a water bottle, and this was rather a nice spot, anyway, but Dustin was having none of it. The gate only went over the road- on one side there was a sharp cliff going up, on the other a 45 degree gravel covered embankment going down. He thought we could get the bike by on that side. The bike was not large- somewhat bigger than a vespa, not not even comparable to a Harley, and it didn't seem impossible. We got the bike down and in front of the gate, and started trying to get it back up. Dustin started sliding down the gravel. At that point, my goal, in total, was to make sure the bike didn't crush Dustin, and I ended up managing to hook myself to a tree and lock my arms around the bike. This stopped it, but we were MUCH further down the embankment, and had proven an inability to move upwards at all. Dustin got the bike stabilized, and thought he would try to turn it on and possibly use its own power as an assist. I thought this was a terrible idea, and got out of the way. It turned out to be a great idea. When the bike turned on, it's headlight automatically came on. The police/park rangers who had just closed the gate were still at the bottom of the drive. They saw the light in the trees, and came to investigate. I saw them coming (there were as many as twenty, as few as ten) and Thought "yes! It's the police! they've come to save us!" and ran up the hill to greet them. Dustin kinda stepped behind a tree, having possibly a different impression of policemen. The police had learned much of their english from pop songs, and assured me that I was beautiful (complimentary, but not helpful) and that I should stay right where I was (surprisingly helpful pop song lyric), and went down to collect the bike. They found Dustin, assured him that he was also beautiful, and put him out of the way with me. They got the bike up the hill and, with utter disregard for the geography and very clear evidence, decided that rather than us being in the park after hours, we must have had an accident on the road (at least 100m straight downhill). They were amazed that we were ok after such a terrible crash. They taught us how to use the brakes, using only the words "beautiful" and "eyes". We thanked them profusely, and, in the spirit of things, assured them that they, also, were beautiful. And then we road our bike back to our room.