The Guy in the Stupid Tee Shirt

by Melissa
(Vancouver, BC)

Imagine if you will three or four women riding their bikes down the road, enjoying the sensation of the wind in their hair and of course, the rumbling, grumbling motors beneath them. And then, it happens. The guy roars past them, on a bike no bigger, no badder than any of theirs. They would have never paid him any attention if not for the shirt. That stupid, stupid tee shirt he was wearing. “If you can read this, the b*tch fell off.” Oh yeah? Is that still the way things are?

I groaned when I read it, tiny fists clenching on my handlebars. I looked over and saw that Denise, the elder spokeswoman, had noticed it but was going to shrug it off. That was good. Cindy was cursing, but then, that is par for the foul mouthed course with that woman. She could insert a particularly colorful, single syllable word into any other word in the world without batting an eye. We all had bets on how many times she would say that word when she got married. It was Jaala that I was worried about. The guy in the stupid tee shirt would be just the red flag that she needed. I looked and saw exactly what I expected. Jaa was mad. As a wet hen! And she was going to tell this guy why she was and what he could do to fix it. Egad, she was barreling up on the guy like she might run him off the road. Well, girls, the chase, as they say, is afoot.

You know, I would have paid money if I could have read that guy’s face when he glanced over this shoulder to see the whirling dervish that had taken over Jaa’s body, bent over her handlebars bearing down on this idiot. The double take was priceless and spot on. He sped up, Jaa sped up more. She was right on his tail and dammit, she was gaining on him! Like a dog that chases cars and will eventually catch one to his own detriment, Jaa was closing ground on the guy in the stupid tee-shirt. Shrugging, we all revved up too. No sense in not being there to see where this would go.

The guy pulled in, not necessarily because of Jaa, to a local gas station. She pulled in right beside him, yanking her helmet off and then wrestling with her hair for a few minutes as she stormed up to the guy. And what a guy! He was built like a tree, a great big tree. He looked over at the three of us, hanging back so that we didn’t look like we had lost our minds like Jaala. He winked and we relaxed, at least a little bit. After all, even a saint can only take so much from a full on verbal assault and that looked like what was about to happen. “Nice shirt,” she said, her voice dripping with irony. “Thanks,” he replied. ‘You take it.” He pulled the shirt off and tossed it to her. We figured she would do something horrible, maybe wipe her face with it and then throw it back. She wore the damn thing home.