There I Was...

...zippin' down the road on ze scoot, sunlight breaking through the ominous clouds above, sun bathing my face, a grin spreading on my lips...

...when suddenly a big fuckin' black fly smacks me in the face, a half inch below my eye!

Now, if you've never had the pleasure of being hit by bugs as you're careening down the street on a scooter or motorbike of any kind, let me tell you: Those bastards hurt!

It hit me so hard that I felt like Paul K. for a good 15 minutes. Paul was that kid everyone had in elementary school, the one that could turn his eyelids inside out.

I remember being on the school bus on the way back from private school, coming through the farmlands, back out to White Rock, and Paul, who was a year younger, would be there folding his eyelids up, and double-crossing all his double-jointed fingers, and doing Gene Simmons-esque things with his freakish tongue. We all hated Paul. He had a Confederate flag hanging in his bedroom window, a farmhouse we could see from the road as we dropped him off. Invariably, two minutes before, he'd begin righting his eyes, uncrossing his fingers, and snickering derisively at the rest of us, whose rides were only half over.

I tell you, riding with one eye feeling inside out is just not as enjoyable as that dick had cracked it up to be. I suppose I needed more frail kids to taunt or something along my scooter route, but they were, sadly, unforthcoming.