Beer and Scooting in Las Vegas
February 21, 2005 | 1:12 pm | Blog | Places, Two Wheels | 0
Update: Don’t try to going to Rolling Stone.com for any useful information on Hunter Thompson. Since, you know, he got his career started there and everything. Sure, there’s plenty of information on Cristina Aguilara and Green Day, but as for a real cultural icon, nothing. I hate that rag.
I had originally planned on writing this post, since it is the one-year anniversary of the weekend where my life flashed before my eyes. But when I woke up this morning and learned that Hunter Thompson had pulled a Maude over the weekend, I decided why not just kill two birds with one stone and dedicate this post to Dr. Gonzo as well.
(My Grandad looks a bit like Hunter Thompson in this picture, but without the love of firearms and acerbic wit.)
This past weekend my friends were in Las Vegas for a scooter rally. They flew, which is a much better decision than the decision we made last year, which was to drive all the way from Houston, Texas, to Las Vegas, Nevada. We decided to drive so that we could tow our scooters with us, and it was a bad idea. Las Vegas is not a very fun place to try to ride a scooter, unless you’re going way, way out of town and into the desert, away from traffic, both on foot and four wheels.
New Orleans is a much better place to take a scooter, but then you’ve got the bumpy streets and the power-hungry police officers.
Anyway, last year, over Valentine’s Day weekend, me, C, and our friends Steven and Lance drove to Las Vegas. The trip took 24 hours straight, and just to illustrate how large Taxes is, when driving from Houston, Texas took up half of the trip. Twelve hours. El Paso was halfway to Las Vegas.
We left at night, towing four scooters with us in a one-ton passenger van that Steven’s band used to tour in. The van was barely still living, and Steven had only purchased a month of insurance to simply get us through the trip.
We made it to El Paso at about 8 a.m. the next morning, and it was snowing. In the desert. There is nothing prettier than snow on a Saguaro cactus. We got to Las Vegas that night, exhausted from living in a van for 24 hours, but ready to party nonetheless.
But this story isn’t really about the trip. This story is about the trip home.
I’m seeing a recurring theme in my posts, and that theme is this: I shoulda known better when…
a) The van needed some work to begin with.
b) I realized Steven had probably done the nasty with someone in that van over the course of touring with his band. Ewww.
c) As we were passing by Hoover Dam on the way home, the brakes in the van were locking up and popping as they unlocked. We had to pull over and let the brakes cool for, like, an hour.
Still, the trip home was uneventful, until we reached San Antonio, about two and a half hours from home. Then our trip came to a screeching, crashing halt, as our breaks failed and we plowed into the back of a small coupe that then plowed into the back of a semi truck.
C, the perfect driver, the man who had never even had a speeding ticket in his life, much less had an accident, was driving. The rest of us were asleep, which is lucky, because none of us had on our seatbelts, and had we been able to react, stiffening up our bodies, we likely would have been even more injured.
I was lying on the bench seat behind Christopher, and I woke up to the sound of the brakes popping. When we hit the semi, my head hit the back of the driver’s seat, and I sat up, spitting out a piece of my molar.
Within 30 minutes of the accident, I also had a huge bump on my noggin about the size of a golfball. But my injuries, luckily, were the worst of everyone involved. The car in front of us, a tiny white coupe, was driven by a guy who was deaf and couldn’t speak very well. But until we figured that out, we all thought the accident had knocked him silly, impairing his ability to communicate.
I had no health insurance at the time, but the car insurance afforded me about $5000 to get my tooth mended and to see a chiropractor, something that I’d never done before. In fact, I was surprised that the insurance would pay for the chiropractor, because it was always something I considered a little quackish.
I found the fanciest chiropractor I could, which wasn’t hard, because in the suburban utopia where I work, people love to throw their money away on that sort of stuff. My neck hurt real bad, and my arms were so sore I was having trouble pulling shirts over my head and shaking drinks at the bar. I just wanted to feel better.
On my first visit, the doctor explained to me that my body could be healed through a combination of Eastern and Western techniques, but he’d have to see me a couple of times a week to really make any difference. On his walls were charts that described some technique similar to reflexology, which made use of the body’s different chakras to cure various ailments.
On my second visit, he hooked me up to a machine that sent electronic pulses throughout my muscles, as seen on TV, to tense them and relax them. He’d hook me up to it for about half an hour, them cover me with wet towels, and leave me alone. Every few minutes he’d come back in and crank up the “Shocker,” and when my time was up, the machine would let out this annoying electronic wail of an alarm.
Sometimes, the good ol’ doc would double book his appointments, and the stupid alarm would continue to sound over and over again, while I lay on my stomach, shirtless and with wires coming off me. Only after another half hour would his secretary come in and unhook me, and then I’d leave without even seeing the doctor again.
Whatever, I thought. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt and perhaps, if I thought positive thoughts, it would work.
My doctor was aggressive. They would never let me leave without booking another appointment, which was difficult, since I had, you know, a job to attend to each day as well. Soon, I began to feel like I was on a bad date that would never end. The secretary would call me at home and try to get me to come in. They’d keep me there for hours hooked up to that machine. At each successive appointment, when I’d complain that I was still in the same amount of pain, it only encouraged them to crank the machine higher.
Then I realized what I had to do. I had to break up with my chiropractor.
At first, I tried to book fewer appointments. But then I got lectured. “You’re never going to get better if you only come in once a week.”
Then I tried to skip appointments, claiming I had to work late, but they charged me for no-shows anyway.
How could I explain that the shocker machine wasn’t working? I knew they’d turn it back around on me and tell me that I didn’t believe enough, I didn’t show up enough. And my argument, that if it really did make a difference I would still be coming, would make no sense to them.
It was getting high pressure. Finally, when I didn’t show up for a week, the secretary called my house, wondering where I’d been. I lied, saying that my insurance funds had run out, and while I would have like to continue “getting better,” you know, I’m just not into you.
Besides, I’ve had enough problems with getting electrocuted anyway.