On the eve of Butt Lite IIII, we had a small caravan heading out from my house to either Raleigh , NC or Decatur , IL
Not only was Eddie putting on a 7 day, 7000 mile rally, he had just quit his job, we were negotiating the purchase of The Two Rivers and he was preparing for the big move to Niobrara.
So details are a little fuzzy. Our destination isn’t important to the story.
We had the Canyonero towing a trailer with a couple or three motorcycles on it (naturally). We had at least one other vehicle probably towing another trailer full of motorcycles. And we might even have had the big Penske rental truck full of every one of Eddie’s worldly possessions.
As our caravan pulled out of our condo complex, heading down the hill to Highway 41, Eddie decided we couldn’t drive another quarter of a mile until he put air in the tires of one or all of the vehicles. Actually, he probably only wanted to put air in the trailer tires but it would have gotten out of hand eventually anyway.
So we pulled into the BP station on the corner. Eddie hated this station and never bought gas there. He was obsessed with convenience stores and like pretty much everything else in his life, he had his favorites. Like the Quik Trip in the other direction from our house.
But it was just air. What could go wrong?
We all pull in to the poorly designed parking lot and wait patiently while Eddie starts the inevitable fight with the air hose.
I had seen him do battle with air hoses in almost every state. They beat him every time. There would be cussing, pulling, twisting, sweating and more cussing. And most times he would wind up lying on the pavement in some sort of contortion that a man his size should never aspire to. Sometimes we would leave with more air and sometimes we would leave with less.
I didn’t have high hopes for this impromptu visit to the BP.
The air was not free. Uh oh.
The cussing started before he even got a chance to touch the hose. He stomps back to the car to retrieve 3 quarters.
He puts the coins in the machine. (It should be noted that it is August in Georgia
Hands start to wave in the air and the next thing I know he is making his way into the store. Where he waits. And waits some more. There is a line. And a very slow cashier with poor customer service skills.
This has the makings of a disaster.
Finally, I see him make his way to the front of the line. He is staring down at this very small man behind the counter. There is pointing and looking and some more hand waving. I see the cashier shaking his head no.
More hand waving and pointing. More head shaking. No. You could see that Eddie was agitated and not winning the argument. Exactly what they were arguing about, I wasn’t sure.
Our friend David gets out of his vehicle to come ask me what is going on. I shake my head and shrug.
All of a sudden we see Eddie pick something up and throw it at the cashier! The cashier doesn’t flinch.
Eddie comes flying out of the store.
“Get in the car!! Let’s go!” he yells at David.
David doesn’t question. He gets back in the car and is ready to roll. He’s traveled a lot with Eddie and he’s a lawyer. Nothing much rattles him. (Come to think of it, Eddie always seemed to have a lawyer in tow on big rallies.)
Eddie jumps into the Canyonero, throws it into drive and takes off out of the parking lot like the cops are after him.
“What just happened?!”
“The air pump took my 75 cents and wouldn’t pump any air! So I went inside to get my money back!”
“What did you throw at that man?”
“He wouldn’t give my money back so I threw a pack of gum at him!”
“You threw a pack of gum at that cashier because you wanted your 75 cents back??”
“It’s not the money, it’s the principle! The machine didn’t work and I shouldn’t have to pay for air that I didn’t get, that should have been free to begin with!”
“So you threw gum at him?”
“I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“Oh I’m pretty sure ‘assault with a pack of gum’ isn’t on the books anywhere. If you get arrested for this I AM NOT bailing you out.”
Seeing as how I’m still driving the same car, I’ve never been back to that BP. Who knows, there may be an open warrant out for a big, crazy, white-haired dude with principles.
Today is my sweet man's 49th birthday. As I wrote this blog I had to keep stopping to wipe away the tears.
I was laughing my ass off as I recalled The Gum Incident. It probably isn't nearly as funny to anyone reading this who didn't know Eddie. But for those of you who did - I'll bet you're laughing your ass off too.I've always known that I would miss his ability to make me laugh more than anything else. But the true beauty of Eddie is that he's still making me laugh. And for me, he was even more funny when he was trying to be serious.
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