No Brakes

 

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In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death

Oh, he feels the piston scraping
Steam breaking on his brow
Old Charlie stole the handle
And the train it won't stop
Oh no way to slow down

 

 

I guy I know who is much younger than I, in his 20's, made a great comment on mate selection.

“Does this train have brakes that work?” Translation: “Can this girl stop herself from careening towards destruction?” I thought the saying novel, comical and right. This doesn't mean guys are immune from living lives that bounce from wall to wall, but H. and I were just talking as guys do and the subject was women.

We both agreed that some excitement is needed, some unpredictability, but not the 'Cops at 3AM in the morning arresting your girlfriend because she's setting fire to your car' kind of adventure. But..more of a positive kind of fun, think Six Flags in a way. The price for that kind of person, if her brakes DO work on her train, are probably some crashes, but they're not fatal to life or the relationship.

Being much older my advice is sometimes warranted but certain areas I steer clear from advising anyone about due to the fact I sucked at certain decisions I made. One area was my choice in women. I tended to find the kind who would stand on the roof of her Acela train, arms waving in air...and had questionable brakes. Luckily for me, I never crashed too hard but it was enough to be painful at times but no broken bones nor massive payouts in any divorce case.

Except one time where my desire for “fun” over rode my usual chicken-shit-scared of any variable I can't control in life. (Sheesh, at this age you'd think I'd ease up on it, but I was warned that the older you get, the more cautious you get about everything!) Anyways, I tossed my reconnoitering of situations, my cost/benefit analyses when it came to some accessible pretty thing who seemed to promise fun I never saw before.

I've written about her before, Lori, the one who lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She had grown up in the Attleboro's and by chance, I found her in a chatroom on the internet. She was married, bored to death and she too liked speed and thrills and other boisterous activities. She flew back to meet up and we have our “fun.” Well, that didn't last long because looking back on it, she wanted her husband to find out. Whatever the reason why I don't know but when you leave travel plans, addresses and the such around the house for him to trip across easily, you're really not trying to hide anything, are you?

It was my one and only time an irate, seriously pissed off husband who called my house and spoke to me in the most sarcastic tone ever. Well, I can understand why. I was lucky enough to have 2,000 miles between us and he wasn't about to jump in any car, rail or plane to come here to pull my skin off bit by bit. Last I heard, and this was years ago, they divorced and she found another guy and living in Denver, CO now. I wonder if he notices her train brakes are useless?

Lori, was Queen #1 'No brakes at all on her train' kinda girl I knew. I'm not a big fan of the Spooky House at the fairgrounds. Being scared to make me jump out of my skin ain't my idea of fun. I have come within 50 feet of a lightning strike once, fallen off a bridge 40 feet down into a scummy algae ridden river at 13. I have lost my grip on a branch and tumbled far to many yards down a slope of rocks and to be stopped, by a larger boulder in the way of my descent. None of those times have I reminisced on as fun. Fright does not do it for me. They're war stories to tell is all.  Lori's kind of fun was a bit over the limit when it included her hubby in the end. 

I did have a time with an exact opposite of the female kind too. Karen, who was the most stable, normal, predictable and boring women I was with. The brakes on her train were inspected daily, upgraded yearly and her train never went faster than 30mph. It made sense, she was a parent of two girls who did quite well with that stability. They did excellent in school and were involved in many other social activities that promised a normal upbringing. I have to give Karen that. She was a good Mom who was home...”there” and was going to be there for a long time for her girls. There were no drugs, booze or low self esteem bulimia to contend with when it came to her life as a parent.

However, like I said already, Karen was a crushing bore a lot of the time. I'd come up with some adventures and she'd back off or..”wanted to think about it.” One was to take her and the girls to Ausable Chasm in in the Adirondacks, a miniature Grand Canyon. It had a maintained trail with guides and Park Rangers and silly safe family friendly areas and hotels. I made the mistake of telling her there was one rope bridge we'd have to cross over a part of the Ausable river that was all whitewater. Well, that killed that idea in her head. I think the brakes on her train may have had frozen calipers that always gripped and slowed the entire train down no matter what. 

 

 Ain't that bad...I did it once. The walk along the cliffs is scarier. 

I finally told H, as we talked, that “don't go by my life...it's way different than what you experienced.” IE: Don't go by my example of looking for the rides that you'd find at questionable fairs that pop up in large Walmart parking lots....or those ill maintained chlorine tanker trains in the Mid West that like to hop the track.

“You've had some years of that kind of girl...who couldn't slow her own train down...don't go looking for another” was all I could say.

Now had he asked me about oil futures, why American refineries are mainly heavy crude distillers of Canadian and Venezuelan slop oil and not the nice light sweet crude the USA itself is awash with...I'd be happy to chat him up. That I am very stable and rational about and take so few chances with . By the way, it's true, the USA pumps out incredible amounts of light sweet crude till we're up to our ears with it.  But, there are many refineries in Texas and Louisiana that are built just to handle heavy sludge oil.  The private oil companies are too scared to invest in refineries that can crack down light sweet crude. Why? One day the price of oil will drop and they'll be standing there with high cost refineries that will take forever to pay back on.