Infectious Stoogerie

It’s a fact; the general idiocy of “the Stooges” is so virulent that a HAZMAT team should be called in.

Yes, stoogerie is in fact contagious, and even at small doses. Case in point: Eric and Paul, just two of the stooges, were joined two Saturdays back by Eric “GPS” Dickson.

On this sunny and inviting Saturday, Paul very quickly proved that his symptoms were active. On the very first turn of the “Alumni Ride” Paul blew by the turn like a man with his fair on fire. Dickson and I had to chase him down to get him back on track.

Now, I mentioned that stoogerie is contagious. Now, as is our fashion, Paul and I and Mr. Dickson launched ahead of the rest of the group. But we had Dickson, so Paul and I felt secure in our chances of staying on course. But Stoogeitis was too powerful for even Mr. Dickson, too, it seems.

As we rolled up on an intersection, Dickson went into full GPS mode, trying to figure out if we were to make a left, or plod straight ahead. But he devoted so much attention to the task that he missed a subtle detail: Paul, who rode directly in front of Dickson, had, in fact, come to a complete stop.

So, at a speed no greater than 2 mph, Dickson smacked right into the back of the stationary Paul. Unfortunately, being a bit ahead of the two, I missed the whole thing, only hearing the clatter of aluminum. I turned to see Dickson sprawled across the street, which was a bit curious considering that there wasn’t a single thing in the road and not so much as a divot in the asphalt to trip him up. And it was right then that every one else rolled up.

(It was at some point here, where our groups met, that the Stooge bug must have jumped to a new host. Later at the barbeque, I discovered that a few riders returned having done a bit more than the proscribed 63 miles.)

So, Dickson became the third stooge on this particular ride. Later on our ride, another of the 40 or so in the Northern NJ contingent rolled up on us, and asked what the next turn was. Upon answering, he was off, and we never saw him again. The irony was, what he was looking for was us. He wanted to find the front of the pack, and kept right on going until the end of the ride, looking in vain for folks he had passed 40 miles earlier. The irony was, he didn’t ask if we were the front of the group…go figure.

With about 10 or so miles left of so, we popped into a local convenience store. Inside were, as you would expect to find now the weather is warm, the super enormous mega sized and deeply artificial freezy pops. I watched the bikes outside, so they asked me what flavor I wanted – “Red”.

While we noshed on our frozen confections and our tongues were dyed a frightening array of colors, the main body of our group whizzed by. But I didn’t care. I had my brain-freeze inducing pop in hand and I was going to enjoy it. I ended up dropping half of this stalactite of sugar, food coloring and water into one of my water bottles. It’s not quite Gatorade, but it sure tastes better.

At the end of the Alumni Ride, SuperDwight already had the charcoal going to heat up burgers, dogs and other sausage-shaped delictibles. Jeff the chef served up some macrobiotic (whatever that means) smoothies, which were excellent, but left us wondering who carries a blender in their trunk. Some folks surruptitiously enjoyed a beer or two, though I won't name names to protect the guilty. I had a few burgers and haggled with a few people over what to write and what to leave out.