Approval

I rode out to the base this morning to do a lil light shopping for mission-essential stuff. Not much on the list (coffee, half and half, nicotine gum), so... given the weather was in a cooperative state (light wind, high 60s ~ low 70s), the day and the mission were tailor-made for the bike. A great day for a ride.

I always park the bike in those lined-off zones at the top of the row in any given parking lot…those places where, even though they’re plainly marked “no parking,” there’s a tacit agreement between bikers and law enforcement personnel that, yeah, you can park there. I’ve never been ticketed nor even admonished for parking the bike in those places and neither has anyone else, to my knowledge.

So. I arrive at the BX, wheel up the parking lot row, slide into the lined off space, put the kick stand down, switch off the bike, and begin to disassemble myself. As I’m taking off my helmet I notice there’s an older man walking by with a young girl of about six or seven years of age in tow. The girl has a BIG grin on her face and is staring at Miss Zukiko as she and her dad (?) walk by, hand in hand. The girl turns and continues looking over her shoulder as they pass…and keeps staring over her shoulder all the way to the entrance of the BX/commissary…a distance of about 100 yards. I smile, both inwardly and outwardly. Miss Zukiko is indeed a comely wench!

There was a time, Gentle Reader, when YrHmblScrb and his mount received lots of approving glances from that girl’s sisters…females about 15 to 20 years her senior. And in that time period there was always a reasonable doubt about who…or what…was the intended recipient of said approving glances. In other words: Me? Or the bike? But these days?

It’s always the bike. {Sigh}

More’s the pity.

And now…football!