Prom Blackmail

When we went to get Charlie's tux for this year's prom, Men's Wearhouse was having BOGO sale.  After looking at the price of the tuxes, I started doing some mental arithmetic.  Charlie has 3 more proms to get through (including this one).  Renting a tux every year would come up to more than just buying one, and if we bought one, he would still have a tux left at the end of 3 years that he could sell if he wasn't ever going to use it again...AND he would have a nice business suit, too!  Didn't take much to sell me, huh?

So we bought a tux and a suit.  Next year, all he will have to buy is a different colored tie and pocket square, and he'll be set. 

Tux: $450
Shoes: $70
Prom ticket: $45
Flowers: $30
Picture of him wearing a tuxedo with a mohawk for future blackmail purposes: PRICELESS!!!!

Return of the Mohawk

Oh, dear, I knew it would happen again. If you noticed in the picture in the last blog post, Charlie's hair went orange again--all over this time.

Sure enough, he decided the weather is warm enough, he wants his mohawk back.  Once the black started growing in, he had the hairdresser shave it.  The stripe runs a different way now...

So proud of ChinaBoi. Some kid at the dorm tried to sucker punch him, and Charlie caught the punch, put him in a wrist lock, and sat him down. 

What I'm proud of isn't that he defended himself--I expect that, since we are a martial arts family--but that he controlled the situation and didn't snap the kid's wrist (which he is more than capable of doing).

Funny, but his brother had a similar episode way back when he was blue belt.  Rick had been bullied a lot in school, and he never let anyone know that he took martial arts because he was afraid they'd come after him even worse.  But one day at the bus stop, some kid put him in a head lock, and instinct and training took over--Rick used his jujitsu moves to escape and gain control of the other kid and very gently forced him down to the ground.  By the time he realized what he had done, the other kids had just backed up in a circle and fallen silent.  He never had another problem with being bullied again.

I'm very grateful that our karate association teaches not only how, but how far. 

The Skunk

Lord help us all.  Oldest Son just bought a bike.

No, not a bicycle.  A motorcycle.

I knew he would.  He's been fascinated by them forever, and he was very, very jealous when I got one a few years ago. 

I knew, at some point, he would find a way to learn, and I was deathly afraid that he would just go and learn the basics from a friend and then take the test at MVA and not have any REAL knowledge of how to ride safely.  And even in a car, his driving leaves a lot to be desired, IMHO.

So for his birthday, I sent him to the Motorcyle Safety Foundation 3-day training course.  I figure if he's going to get a license, I can at least make sure he gets it as safely as possible and gets all the knowledge I can wish for him so that he has a fighting chance of staying alive out there. 

He passed and got his license, and withdrew every cent he could afford to sink into it from the bank and started looking for a deal. 

Prior to taking the MSF course, he wanted a crotch rocket.  But afterwards, he decided he wanted a cruiser, after all.  In a mature moment (rare when it comes to thinking about motorcycles!) he realized that riding in the forward posture on a crotch rocket gives the rider a more aggressive mentality, and that the straight-up posture of a cruiser gave a more laid-back attitude about the ride.  (THANK YOU, MSF!!!!)

But he was so desperate that he was considering bikes that I wouldn't have ridden for even a test drive if you'd paid me--one that had been laid down (motorcycle-ese for a bike that hits the ground while still in motion), one that had 88K miles.  I finally managed to talk him out of them and put his money back in the bank and just sit back, because a good deal would come to him when the time was right, just as it had when I got my Rebel. 

Sure enough, a couple weeks later, he goes to look at a Suzuki Volusia Intruder he found on CraigsList.  He gets the guy to ride it out to the house for him, since he doesn't want his first ride to be on someone else's tags (just in case!), and a couple of days later he has it tagged and on the road.

It's nick-named "The Skunk" for obvious reasons once you see it.  Here's a link to the YouTube vid the seller posted.  Rick's bike

He got a good deal. I think he's got a keeper. 

And most important, since it is bigger and badder than mine, he has managed to reclaim the "macho" title of the household.