Scars: Reminders of Lessons Learned

Let us start with a couple of traffic facts. Fact one: Everybody that drives a car is an idiot. Fact two: Everybody that rides a motorcycle is crazy. Not all to the same degree, mind you, but crazies and idiots nonetheless.

I'm a bit of both, as you might have guessed. I ride a motorcycle every day but Sunday, which happens to be the only day I wear long pants.

One work day, I dropped off my work truck and rode the motorcycle home where my wonderful bride was waiting for me with bated breath. (See facts one and two again.) As is my custom, I was "sharing" lanes on a surface street. The rest of traffic stopped for a red light. I was making my way to the limit line when a young lady decided she needed to force her way from the right lane to the left lane. I admit I was in no immediate danger, but I was looking in her mirror. She wasn't looking. That, um, "upset" me. Therefore, I pulled along side her, gave her the meanest you're-an-inconsiderate-idiot-are-you-trying-to-kill-me look I could muster from within a full face helmet and proceeded to go around her protruding bumper. Ah, but it was a tight fit. Not wanting to touch the Suburban she was trying to wedge behind, I "walked" my bike though the gap. I must have started with the wrong foot, because at about the third step I felt my right leg caught between the piping hot exhaust pipe and the girl's bumper. I hit the throttle and quickly powered out of the bind. It smarted. It left a mark that eight months later still reminds me of Romans 12:17-21. When I seek vengeance for myself, I'm the one that gets burned.