On ways to hide/explain a pile of parts or bike from/to your Significant Other (SO).
The order of the verbs in the previous sentence is important; they are in a sequence that will play itself out automatically, although somewhat randomly. This all requires that you have an SO; if you don't, you don't need this advice - yet.
First, when you're looking at the old POS (Piece of Sh**) that you're thinking of draggin' home, note how many people it takes to bring it to your truck and put it into the bed. If it makes deep grooves in the dirt on the way to the truck and there were two of you pulling it, imagine what it will do to the driveway or lawn at home and how hard the marks will be to cover. If it takes two or more persons to get it into the truck bed, remember that you will have to get it on the ground yourself at the house. It's good to have a place on the far side of the property that you can get to without driving up to or by the main house. That way you can just back up to the spot, tie a rope to the POS, then drag it off onto the ground and drive on up to the house innocently with nothing in the truck bed.
Having thought all that through (yeah, right.), you need to have various piles of POSs about the property so that additional stuff on them will be inconspicuous. For instance, a clapped out Super Hawk with a busted left engine case, a seat pan so rusted you can't use it to drag the thing around, a purple metallic gas tank you can see the ground through, and no rear wheel, but with a completely salvageable left side footpeg bracket will stand out like a sore thumb tucked in among the red Azaleas at the edge of a manicured green carpet of lawn. I've tried it.
How you first create the piles is a bit tricky, but try to be understanding and don't put your new found treasure of corroded NOS YDS3 headlight buckets in the unused corner of the garage, at least not straight away. Instead, find a quiet corner of the property, stack them neatly and cover them with a tarp, promising the whole while, "Aw honey, do you know what these are worth? And they'll only be here until I sell them all for a hundred bucks apiece. Then we'll go out to Steak and Ale." Make several piles this way, then just add to them. So when you're suspected of causing the piles to grow just explain, "Aw honey, that stuff's been there for months, maybe years!" Just be careful there, because if the SO then says, "Yeah, I know" you might need to be more discrete because you may soon find yourself making unkeepable promises about how soon the piles will be going away. Remember, this whole thing is pushing the envelope, stretching an unseen membrane. It will stretch a long way, but you don't want to break it.
Adding complete, or almost complete, bikes requires more finesse, gained only by strict adherence to the above processes and much experience. When SO demurely remarks, "Hey hon, you know, I don't remember that big green motorcycle with the funny set of mufflers, 'cause I think I would of noticed a bike with two pipes on one side and just one on the other." You retort, gently, "Aw honey, that bike's been sitting there for months, maybe years. Remember we brought it home with us on the way back from Steak and Ale that night last year - didn't we? Well, it was sometime around then, and it's a real collector's piece - worth thousands. Got it for next to nuthin'."
Ok, now the ultimate event, where you come into your stride, at your best, the pinnacle of justification, remorse, pride, humility, and bargaining all in perfect concert toward the worthiest of goals: you need to borrow money from your SO, in cash, to purchase an addition to the stable. Well, I don't think I could explain it if you don't already know how to do it. I had to learn the hard way, and so should the reader.
This page is from the Troyce Archive
