My thing

Bonehead has been known to pick on me from time to time. Occasionally. Sometimes I realize it right away. Other times, even after 14 years of marriage, I don’t see it coming. I have no idea why- even our 6 year old is onto him. But I never learn. I will probably never learn.

In high school I used to have this Yamaha Jog. It was this periwinkle blue scooter that went 45mph, tops. I loved it because before I had a car to drive it brought me a freedom I had never encountered before. I was 14 when my parents bought me this scooter – the legal age to drive one where I grew up in rural Michigan. I had a brief taste of the freedom it provided before I moved to Illinois at 15 and met Bonehead. It had to be put away until I turned 16 in Illinois, but the second I could legally drive it again, I was on it.

Scooters were not real popular at the time I drove mine. Whenever I would tell someone what I drove eyes would glaze over and fruit flies would gather. I soon began to call my scooter “my thing”. Then, when I talked about “my thing” it would become interesting. Your thing? What’s that? How fast does it go? You get HOW MANY miles to the gallon?

Some of my friends would pick on me about it, but I became accustomed to picking rather early in life. My mom has 4 older brothers, so essentially Bonehead just walked in and picked up where they left off. In the grand scheme of things there’s not a lot of difference between walking to the shot gun cabinet muttering about pesky “wabbits” when your niece trick-or-treats as a bunny and hiding your wife’s curling iron on top of the entertainment center above her 5’3” height level.

For a brief time Bonehead and I worked at TJ Maxx together. On the nights we would both work, a group of us would meet afterwards and go to the burger joint across the street for shakes and fries and whatever other junk food struck our fancy. Sometimes I would ride my thing, and other times I would hop on the back of his motorcycle for a ride.

One evening I left work and walked across the dark parking lot to my thing. I trudged along putting my helmet on as I walked. The closer I got, the more puzzled I became. I got to the spot where I parked my thing and stood there in the darkness, helmet on, looking around.

My thing was not where I’d left it. My thing was no where near where I’d left it. In fact, my thing was nowhere to be seen.

Through my panic about what my parents were going to say when they learned my thing was stolen, I heard snickers from behind the brick wall nearby. Bonehead and his friend had picked up my thing and moved it.

I think I might have made him pay for my fries that night.