Apr 2, 2014

Iowa, the Place to Go to Make Noise

We cruised into Iowa on a seasonably warm late March afternoon. I have to give Iowa motorcyclists some credit, we’d just left Missouri after 5 motorcycle-free nearly perfect riding days. So, the fact that people do ride on a warm Sunday is worth something. Unfortunately, what they ride is predictable.

We pulled into a relatively isolated campsite a bit south of Des Moines and while the wind was blowing and there was a fair amount of noise from kids in the campground and playing in the park across the lake, the overwhelming noise in the -park was from the highway, 3.5 miles away; Hardly's and Hardly-sound-alikes. A constant roar, like being near a major city’s airport. Not being satisfied with indirectly bothering as many people as a simpleminded politician with a corrupt agenda, occasionally one or more of these douchebags would prowl through the campground decimating peace and quiet, conversations, and cranking out new enemies for real motorcyclists.

The self-image these characters cling to is pretty hilarious considering how they are really seen. They glance at the people they pass to see if they’re drawing attention, then they try to drag themselves back to the road satisfied that they’re being checked out. Clueless as Rick Santorum, they imagine that the folks they’ve interrupted, irritated, intimidated, and injured are admiring them and their blubbering machines. They are, more often than not, wrong. If they could focus well enough on their oversized, underpowered vibration testers, they’d see that most people are looking at them with irritation. Some are covering their ears or, if they are parents, they cover their kids’ ears. More than a few are quoting South Park and calling them “fags.” Pretty much nobody of consequences (or intellect) is admiring the fools and their miserable machines.

Me? I’m laughing at them. And I’m recording them. The first time a pair of these clowns paraded through the campground, I whipped out my camera in movie-mode and recorded them as they passed by our RV. That seems to make them nervous, so I pulled out a chair and recorded the next group of blubber-masters. And the next. Pointing the camera at the douchebags seemed to hurry them out of the park. I took a break and a pair of fruitcakes decided to park across from my RV. I fired up the camera and they got nervous and left. I’m beginning to think this might be the solution. Maybe putting douchebags on YouTube, along with a few comments from bystanders would shame enough of them into being quiet. Probably not, but wouldn’t it be nice?

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