Mopedland

Beads came over for dinner Tuesday night. I am amazed and jealous of her ability to have so many orgasms in a row in one night. We fooled around a little in the hot tub and shower, then went to bed. Over the span of two hours she had (or at least claimed to have had) seven orgasms. Yes, I kept track. Not for ego reasons, though, this was scientific research. I just don't see how that number is possible. If I came seven times I would have to be hospitalized.

I have to say, Beads is just really sexy. It's hard to describe how or why. The best I can do is to say that she is naively sexy in that she doesn't seem to know that she is. For instance, in the middle of the night she got up to go to the bathroom and put on her little underwear ("boy shorts". as she called them). She didn't have a shirt on, and when she crawled back into bed it was like a scene out of a porn. She was half asleep but she was still slinking around like a sex kitten. She's oblivious to it, though. Or at least I think she is since she didn't even know I was awake.

On the other end of the spectrum is Tiny, she's just not sexy at all. I think this is exactly the reason I'm kind of losing interest in her. I can't put my finger on it. We're going out for drinks tonight, I'll see if I can get a better grip on it.

I got an email from Blue last night, my little friend from Montreal. She said she would like to take me up on my offer of showing her around DC this spring. She's done with school in a month and would like to come down for a long weekend, 3-4 days. I'm looking forward to that, I'm sure we'll have a good time.

I'm supposed to go to happy hour tonight with some people from work, including Trouble. My goal is to have one or two drinks with them and get her phone number. I'm meeting Tiny out at 7:30 for drinks on the waterfront, that should leave plenty of time to get her number. With any luck she will be in town this weekend and I can talk her into a motorcycle ride.

This has nothing to do with dating, but I think it's funny. I salvaged a scooter this week. It was abandoned and the city was going to have it scrapped, so I decided that was a waste and took it home. I figured it would be a good "grocery getter", just something to run errands around the neighborhood on. It's kind of cool. It's Chinese, but has that retro Vespa look.

It was in pretty rough shape. It had been tipped over on its side for months, so most of the fluids had leaked out of it. A combination of gas, sunlight, and snow wreaked havoc on all the metal surfaces, two of the plastic fairings were cracked and the battery was missing. Just to add insult to injury, someone had reached into the engine compartment and ripped out some of the vital electrical components.

I took the scooter apart, removed all the fairings, and ripped out the ignition which had been cracked open with a screw driver (likely as a result of being stolen). I went online and found an engine diagram and figured out what parts were missing, then found a place in Crystal City called Mopedland that repairs these. I called the dude and he said he had the parts I was looking for. I jumped on my bike and rode out there.

Mopedland is like a morgue in a war zone, only for scooters. There are mutilated frames in varying states of decay strewn all over the room, with parts from other machines stacked on top of them. It's filthy, with oil and other fluids on every inch of the floor. Along the walls are file cabinets with parts overflowing out of them onto the ground. Spark plugs, spare tires, headlights, brake levers, stuff was everywhere. There appears to be no order to it, though I'm sure it makes sense to someone.

That someone would most likely be Bernie, the shops kooky owner, or "Head Mechanic/CEO", as his card reads. Bernie Gratzl is an elderly German man with a shaved head who wears those glasses that turn dark automatically in the sunlight. Knowing Germans' propensity for strict order, and having seen his shop, I can only deduce that Bernie was run out of his homeland and somehow wound up in Northern Virginia.

I walked into the shop and said I was the guy that called earlier, but Bernie had no recollection of speaking to me. I said I needed a spark plug cable and a few other things, and Bernie reached into several cabinets and pulled out a tangle of wires and dusty black parts, then handed them to me. He looked up at the ceiling and muttered, tabulating my total. I can't tell if he was talking in German or English. Finally Bernie said "Nineteen dollars". Seemed like a lot for a few wires and scraps. I pulled out my wallet and only had $16 on me. I said "Do you take credit cards". It was an absurd question and instantly wished I could retract it. He said "How much you got there?", "Um, sixteen bucks", and I showed him the cash. I had some money from Costa Rica in my billfold, worth about fourteen cents, and he said "I take foreign currency, you got Euros?", I just shook my head to say no. Bernie said "Gimme that, we'll call it even." I handed him the cash, thanked him, then headed out.

About an hour later I found another missing part and rode back to Mopedland. As I walked into the shop Bernie was on the phone and said "I'll come to you". He was sitting at his desk so I walked in and was looking at the various scooter frames. Two steps later he yelled "I SAID I WOULD COME TO YOU!". I froze, and he slowly walked over to me. "What do you need, I'm very busy?". Apparently I was really putting him out. I mean, he owns a scooter parts store and here I have the balls to come in and try to purchase scooter parts! He acted like I walked in and started giving him shit about German aggression in the forties. Christ! I told him I needed an ignition coil, and he walked away. I saw I was standing in a puddle of black motor oil, but was afraid to move.

Bernie came back with the coil and said "Hmmm, this is a very expensive part. Very expensive". I had stopped at an ATM machine on the way there, so I had cash this time. I looked around the shop and tried to gauge what Bernie's definition of "very" expensive was. The part was the size of a 35mm film canister, and had a 10" cable coming out of one end. I figured $20, and pulled a bill out of my wallet. Bernie looked at my wallet, perhaps searching for Euros, or Ducats, and repeated "Very expensive". I'd had enough, "Are you going to sell me the part? What are we talking about, a million dollars here? How much is the thing?". He said "There aren't many of these around..." I pulled out another twenty. He said "It's $55". I said "Whatever" and handed him the money and left. I KNOW I got hosed, but he's the only show in town, what can I do?

I got on my bike and was waiting at the light in front of his shop. Thirty second later he came out screaming and waving his arms at me as if I had taken a dump in the middle of his shop floor. I couldn't hear him over the engine so I turned it off. "What are you, an idiot? You want to sit there at that red light all day? Back up, jerk, the sensor can't read you from there!" I looked around and saw I was past the white line you're supposed to stop at. Apparently there is a sensor that trips the light. He continued "Look, it's infra red, the sensor is up there (pointing to the top of a light post), idiot! Back up. BACK UP! Move back. Or do you want to sit here all day?" Now I'm starting to laugh hysterically. Here is this fat little German man, in his greasy coveralls, shouting at the top of his lungs at me. What's funniest is that he's genuinely mad, no irate, at the fact that I don't know this light is infra red activated. I shrugged my shoulders and backed up a few feet. I moment later the light turned green. Before I could restart my bike I heard him yell "See, you jerk".

Bernie is awesome. I love that he doesn't give a fuck and will berate his customers. He should open a restaurant.