Friday, September 5, 2008

Motorcycles and Melons

Okay, this is off topic a bit, since it has nothing to do with Charlie except in a very indirect way, but did you know that motorcycles and cantaloupes are not well suited to each other?

For those outside the immediate family who didn't know it, I went and took the motorcycle classes this summer and bought a bike. Actually, it was the other way around--I bought the bike first, left it in the guy's shed, signed up for the class, and then went and picked it up once I was licensed.

No, I have not had a deep-seated urge all my life to be a motorcycle mama. But the words "70 miles per gallon" were just really talkin' to me...besides, I got cool-mom points from my oldest son, Rick.

Anyway, I belong to this Community-Supported Agriculture group, where a local farmer brings vegetables right to where I work each week, and each person who has bought in gets a set amount of this, that, and the other. I split a share with a colleague of mine, and I ran into a situation this week where I wasn't going to be there to get my share of the loot, so she took it all home, and I went to pick it up from her house a couple of nights later.

Naturally, I took the motorcycle. She had mentioned that one of the items was a cantaloupe, and that we could split it. Charlie loves cantaloupe, so I took a gallon size baggie, jumped on the bike and headed out. I was going to lay the baggie in my tank bag (a bag that sits in front of the rider, on the gas tank, held on with magnets) with the cut side down.

By the time I got there, she had changed her mind. Her husband hates 'loupes, can't even stand the smell of them, and she didn't feel like listening to his whining, so she decided to just hand over the whole thing. So now I have this round cantaloupe. Forget the baggie. I stuck it (along with the zucchini, the eggplant, and the tomatoes) in the tank bag.

Vibrations from the motorcycle don't agree with the melon. By the time I got it home, my cantaloupe had flattened on one side. I didn't have to worry about it rolling off the counter, that's for sure.

I expected to find it half gone by the time I got home from work, since Charlie gets home from school before I get home from work. But it was still intact. I asked him if he had seen it, and he said, "Yeah, but it was all soft. Ick."

Twerp.