Roll On

Did you ever notice how riding these motorcycles make you see things from a different perspective? Those folks that don’t ride can see things the way a normal person would and those that just ride occasionally see things slightly different, and those that ride and ride all the time see it completely different. Take for example, the convenience store hot dog machine. You know the one – it rolls your hot dog or the random sausage, back and forth in a constant state of turning to keep it warm, and I suppose appealing to eat. Maybe it’s the Ferris wheel type of unit that is fun for all ages to watch and is quite the novel way of getting your food. As a motorist, you wouldn’t dare eat one even though deep down they don’t smell that bad – or is that the nacho cheese? Thoughts of how long or are they done come to mind, let alone what might happen if you actually ate one. The occasional rider would look at them and probably move on to a bag of chips and a fountain drink and be happy. But somewhere during that epic ride you’re on, you will eat one. There is something about traveling on a motorcycle that will make you eat stuff like that, but it will also cause you to drink a hot bottle of water in your saddle bag, eat beef jerky just after the expiration date, (if there is one) and chew a stick of gum that you can barely get the paper off of. It’s delicious.

Is it the wind in your face that makes us do things like that? I know dogs stick their heads out of car windows, and quite frankly, they eat some things I would never eat, but I don’t think that’s the reason. Is it direct exposure to the sun? Maybe. We’ve watched movies where our hero is crawling through the desert when he sees an oasis in the distance, only to find when he gets there he is putting sand in his mouth instead of water. But I’m still not convinced that is it. I know I have walked past these contraptions many times thinking do they really sell that many hot dogs? Every time the shift changes, do the hot dogs get replaced? Are they forced into a life of constant motion until they finally get picked? So many questions and never enough buns.

So many questions and never enough buns.

After a long day in the saddle, you stop for gas and you think you might need something to tide you over until you can eat a meal. Chips, candy bars, beef sticks and jerky are tempting – I’m not sure about the chicken salad sandwich in the cooler that comes pre-cut and in a wedge shape, but it did catch my eye. How about a microwaved breaded chicken sandwich? I’m only sixty seconds away from enjoying that. But wait, Look over there! In the corner, right next to the coffee and cappuccino machine, in-between the nacho cheese, the tiny sink and the condiments, and in all its glory – the roller machine loaded with hot dogs. They’re already done (I hope), and there isn’t that horribly long wait of sixty seconds before I can eat!

So the real reason we bikers would ever take a chance on eating a meat product that has the first ingredient listed as “Mechanically Separated Chicken” is because at some point or another we have had a bug, big and small, make it into our mouth while traveling at highway speed. It’s as simple as that. There are times when the bug gets spit out, but there are times when there isn’t enough of the bug left to spit out. I refer to these bugs as “Motorcycling Separated Bugs.”