Tuesday, November 22, 2011

It’s up to you.

It’s up to you.

What does that mean anyway? I guess before I ask you to translate it for me, I should ask you which sex you are…believe me, it seems to make a difference.

Let me tell you the story of the first time I heard those four little words and how it shaped my life.

I had to have two serious hip operations, one a few weeks after the other. This was operation one and after a few days I was home on crutches to get stronger ready for the second operation.

Previously, two mates and I had started our first foray into motor sports by buying a Yamaha 750 and were doing it up for drag racing. We put high compression pistons in it, bigger valves and ….and I’m starting to bore you now aren’t I?

How about I just say we opened up the motor and poured many hundreds of dollars into it hoping to make it faster.

The last of the engine bits came as I was in hospital so my mates finished putting it together and made a date and time to meet out at our local drag strip for testing.

I turned up with my girlfriend as I couldn’t walk let alone drive. We looked the bike over and started it up, after a few adjustments the guys took a few runs down the strip, giving it a bit more each successive run.

Just before we left to go home one of my mates asked me if I wanted to have a run down the strip… I looked to my girlfriend who uttered these words.

“It’s up to you!”

Well, if it was up to me then I was going to run it down the strip…obviously!

They put the bike on its stand and helped me onto it; they even had to lift my leg onto the foot peg as I couldn’t do it myself. Then they stood the bike upright and held it that way as I got ready to go.

I gunned the engine and dropped the clutch, my two mates let go as the bike stormed away in a cloud of tyre smoke. It held the front wheel in the air for forty yards with me leaning right on the front to keep it down, it weaved across the track with the rear wheel spinning most of the way down the strip. Wow, what a rush!

By now I was out of track and had to brake hard before I ran off the end of the strip, I turned back and took it easy down the track to cool the motor before shutting it down as I was caught by my mates.

I did notice that my girl was kinda quiet as we packed up to go home, but I didn’t realize just how pissed she was until she had me captive in the car heading back down the road. That’s when I ran headlong into a shit storm of hurricane proportions.

Apparently, in this case ‘it’s up to you’ actually meant ‘Don’t you dare.’

The next couple of weeks were very uncomfortable, she did eventually start speaking to me again and I did eventually get my leg over again, but not for quite some time…

This is part one of this story….



.

12 comments:

Symdaddy said...

"It's up to you" from a woman's lips obviously mean "Do what I want to do, not what you want to do!"

From a man ... well, that could mean almost anything from "Lemme go first" to "Don't even think about it!"

'course, that's only my opinion.

Oh, I'm not one of the "Do what I want to do" brigade.

Magsx2 said...

Hi Tempo,
I'm sorry but I couldn't help but laugh. You were lucky you weren't hurt or worse!

For someone that had to get his girlfriend to drive because he couldn't, but you could still manage to ride the bike, that is just mind blowing. (Of course this is a womens point of view) LOL.

Of course she was furious, maybe you should of listened to the tone in "it's up to you". She was doing you a favour in more ways than one, she didn't want to say don't do it in front of your mates, and she was helping you by taking you to the meeting.

Men will they never understand. LOL.

Steve said...

For men to remain manly it is vital that we not only fail to learn a lesson, but also refuse to attempt to learn a lesson. That's what makes us blokes!

Belle said...

Next time she says that, look into her eyes for a minute. If they get all narrow and ugly, you'll know she didn't mean it. Oh, and are her arms crossed across her chest?

I know women are baffling sometimes.

Sarah said...

Ha ha I say this regularly to my husband and frequently in similar situations after his surgery! Except I don't get mad at him when he does something silly...I get even!

"If your back feels good enough to go frisbee golfing for 4 hours & bending over all that time to pick up your discs, then your back must feel good enough to bend over the tub to scrub it for 20 minutes!"

Windsmoke. said...

I reckon its a sneaky way of not commiting yourself when asked a difficult question which women are notorious at doing all the time :-).

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Not that is dedication to your sport. I would be willing to take a cannonball to the belly if it meant I had a girlfriend telling me that it might not be the best for me.

Tempo said...

Hi Symdaddy, I was only 18 and had no idea about women's ability to mystically change what things mean without warning.
Hi Mags, from a mans point of view I'd have to say that I was invited to have a ride...not a fall. I never intended to fall off. I was driving a manual car and couldn't do that clutch thing.
A man after my own heart there Steve, mankind would still be living in caves if they were afraid to try new things.
Oh Belle, for some strange reason that I didn't understand....she left me for a more quiet life a year later... of course I knew she didn't want me to do it.. it was the bloodshot eyes and clenched teeth that gave it away..
@Sarah, It's a man thing to listen to good advice then ignore it completely. We want to know what you think but dont necessarily want to do what you want us to do...
Hi Windsmoke, Yes, I agree with you, she could have said something about being unhappy with the suggestion... my mates said they knew straight away that I was in deep doo and while I was having fun tearing up the track she was loudly planning to deknackerize me...
Hi Kal, Who wouldn't want to ride a bike like that, I'd put in a few hundred and wanted to see how it went. Of course I was probably devaluing her somewhat at the time but like I said, I was just 18 and full of life

Magsx2 said...

Hi Tempo,
Just saw your Gravatar on my blog,
Mystic 29, a very unique name, sort of makes you think, and what to find out more, very clever. :)

Tempo said...

Hi Mags, Theres a Blogger fault on my account and I have to use my WordPress account to comment on some blogs. Yours, Pearls and Symdaddy. I never did get around to starting that Mystic page..maybe one day.

KaLynn ("MiMi") said...

Well atleast you figured out what it meant the first time! Too funny!!

Tempo said...

Hi KaLynn, once too many failures I'm thinking...