So we passed our motorcycle test. (Well, Benson passed.)
Time to buy a scooter, baby!
After an unfortunate trip to a scooter shop in Houston in which Benson test drove one while I buried my face into his back, pleading him to be careful, that I didn’t want to die on the streets and who would feed the dog?, we decided that Benson should be in charge of searching for and purchasing our scooter.
A few weeks later, he found it on Craigslist: an Italian scooter with less than one hundred miles on it, being sold at a huge discount by a woman who’d owned it for only a month. “I bet this lady bought it, had a scare, and decided it wasn’t for her,” Benson speculated.
“Yeah, probably something like that,” I agreed.
But it wasn’t something like that. It wasn’t something like that at all…
Benson emailed the seller. Her name was Tanya, and she told him that she’d bought the scooter a month ago, but had surgery recently and couldn’t drive it anymore. Then he called her, and they chatted back and forth about the bike specs and all the other boring parts that are likely important. Before they hung up, he got her address and said we’d be coming to see the bike that day.
“She just said she had surgery. That’s why she’s selling it,” he said after hanging up.
“I guess it was an emergency surgery. Maybe like an emergency hysterectomy. People have those,” I said.
“Guess so,” he nodded while looking up directions.
“Hey hon,” he said again. “I just looked at this address and clicked ‘street view’ and saw this:”
There it was…
A prostitute on the corner across from Tanya’s address.
“Let’s give Annie and Anthony the address of where we’re going in case anything happens,” he suggested as we gazed at the image of the woman wearing what was undoubtedly a dress sewn for the sole purpose of selling one’s body.
“Good idea,” I said, and texted Annie, telling her that if they didn’t hear from us within two hours to call the cops and give them this address.
On the way to a more questionable part of town to check out the scooter, I pondered this surgery some more. “Maybe it was the boob job? Maybe that’s the surgery she’s talking about and now it hurts her arms to turn the bike? I’ve heard it’s painful.”
When we arrived at the intersection of her apartment complex, we kept an eye out for the prostitute but didn’t see her. We then pulled into the parking lot and Benson called Tanya to open the gate for us.
A few seconds later we saw a lady running toward us…
Tall, long blond hair, big boobs…
And a five-o’clock shadow and an Adam’s apple.
“Tanya’s a man,” I said as we watched her open the gate for us and motion where to park.
“I’d say Tanya is a man,” Benson agreed, giving her a wave.
When we got out of the truck, we all shook hands, smiling really big, like, “Hi Tanya! No, I don’t notice that you’re a man at all! Those giant boobs look totally natural! You’re giving us a limpy handshake? That makes so much sense, really! THIS WHOLE THING IS SO NORMAL TO US!” Smile smile smile smile!
Benson asked some questions about the bike while I stood there still smiling. Almost all of Tanya’s answers involved not being able to drive the bike anymore due to her “surgery”. It was obvious she wanted us to ask about this surgery, which made me even more determined not to acknowledge it.
And that’s when Benson had the audacity to ask if he could test drive the bike. “Of course! Here’s the key!” she chirped. And I watched my husband drive away, leaving me to stand in the parking lot of a kinda scary apartment complex with Tanya and her surgery and her five o’clock shadow.
Tanya turned toward me. “I wanted to drive it, but with the surgery…” she said, throwing her hand in the air in a “what do you do?” way.
“So are you from Houston?” I asked. I will not take your bait, Tanya.
“No, I’m from Alabama –“
“Hey! Benson’s from Alabama!” We are not talking about your sex-change surgery, Tanya. We’re talking about Alabama.
“I haven’t lived here long. It’s been hard since the surgery –“
“What part of Alabama did you live? Benson’s from a small town called Ranburne. Not even a traffic light! Ha ha! And we have a dog! Do you have a dog?” I control this conversation, Tanya. Now we’re talking about dogs.
“I do. She’s such a mama’s girl,” Tanya told me.
See there? We’re talking about dogs.
After a few minutes, Benson zipped back on the bike, all peppy because he didn’t have to stand there thwarting off sex-change surgery conversation for the past seven minutes. I cut my eyes at him as he removed the helmet.
We ended up buying the bike. I followed Benson home in the truck while he carefully drove his new scooter back to our house.
When we got home, he had a text from Tanya: “Will you text me when you get home? Just want to make sure you made it okay.”
He wrote her back, letting her know he’d made it just fine and thanked her again.
And that’s how we got a really good deal on an Italian scooter.
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wow. the ledbetters in houston have a way of living some interesting stories haha!
How bad would you have had to pee to ask to use her(?) toilet?
I’d say 10 out of 10.
I cannot tell you how happy I am that we didn’t have to go looking for you guys that day… for more reasons than one! 😉
Oh my! What a story! You sure do have a lot of funny experiences!
Made me belly-laugh. You two are a mess! 🙂