Ever take it off any sweet jumps?

A and I went to the police auction on Saturday. It was wonderful. It was the first time either of us had been active participants in any type of auction--and were both a bit nervous about the situation. What I know about auctions comes from that episode of the Cosby's where they all go to buy some African American art, and Cliff ends up inadvertantly bidding on a piece after scratching his head, or something as bonejarringly hilarious as that. Anyway, we were both sure to keep our hands at our sides at all times.

We went with the intention of buying a pleasure vehicle--we had 100 dollars to burn and wanted something we could put some liability insurance on and drive to the grave in mountains. We had our eye on the International Scout or the Mitsubishi Montero. Turns out, all were roughed up pretty badly, all this terror, this criminal wake still inside. Each radio was missing. Only 4 of them still had keys. One still had a hard cheeseburger on the passenger seat. We ended up deciding to bid on a bicycle instead.

When the auctioneer guy came to the bike I wanted no one was bidding on it. This surprised me because it was pretty killer. The guy was like "who'll give a dollar for it?" so I raised my two shaky fingers. The assistant guy said "hup!". Then A hit my shoulder and said, "What are you doing?" Turns out I bid on the wrong bike. I was so embarrassed. I had to play it off like I meant to bid on it. It was a real piece of shit too. A rusted out huffy without a chain. I felt a little better when A made an impulse bid on a bike for herself a few minutes later. No one was bidding on it, and despite the fact we hadn't studied it beforehand, she thought it would make for a nice ride. Turns out, it didn't have any brakes. Made me feel a little better.

I ended up getting a sweet Mongoose Hilltopper (pictured above) for 3 bucks. Real cherry. Shocks. Pegs. Lucky. We left the other two bikes behind, ripped the numbers off so no one could trace them back to our names. We didn't realize until later that the Mongoose wouldn't fit in the car. I had to ride it home. In the cold. 3.38 miles.