As I have posted my truck is in a "broke down" state in Florida and I am holed up in a motel.
Today the housekeeper came in to clean my room as I was smoking a bowl of Uhle's Bishop's Move. I was somewhat surprised as she said how much she likes the smell of a pipe and commenced to tell me how her grandfather smoked a pipe and how she liked the smell.
Bishops Move is pretty heavy on Latakia so I am always surprised when anyone says they like the smell of it. This lady especially surprised me as I would have taken her as an anti.
My pipe case was open and displayed the pipes it contained, eight of them total minus the one I was smoking (309), and she made a big deal about the pipes.
She actually had some intelligent things to say about pipes and such including the fact that one rarely runs across someone who smokes a pipe. Naturally I took a liking to her.
Between my pipes, hat, and ties (bows) the staff of this hotel know who I am and treat me like a long lost relative. Even the owner has approached me and made small talk about pipes. I get the feeling he has wanted to try one and just hasn't made the leap yet. This was in the motel lounge.
For the most part my time in the lounge was pretty boring until a bike club rolled in. It was a black club that came rolling in cranking their throttles and making as much noise as possible.
These guys came in making a bunch of noise and livened up the place quite a bit. I got to talking to the biggest guy of the bunch, a huge black guy wearing a leather jacket with their colors on the back and who I figured was their leader.
Turned out that he wasn't their leader at all but was a prospective member. While we were talking he told me this was his initiation ride and before the night was out he was expected to hit someone to prove he was good enough for their club.
He struck me as being a lot smarter than that and we got to talking and eventually I suggested that he pick a fight with me. The guy's heart wasn't really into this thing and he needed an easy out and I sort of felt sorry for him.
I am about his size, around 225 lbs, and have a "history" as far that sort of thing goes. I wasn't worried about squaring off with this guy. I told him to start talking loud with me and to give me a shot to the chin.
He balked at that and said he didn't want to do that as I seemed like an "alright guy" to him. I explained that I was just trying to help him out and didn't want to see some random person get himself messed up over a club initiation. Let's just get it over with. Besides, I wasn't going to press charges over it.
He was a big guy and could probably do some serious damage to someone who wasn't either well matched or at least expecting it.
He bought me a beer and we talked about it a bit more. He finally agreed that it was probably best, and I promised to not hurt him. That gave him a chuckle.
We started out with some loud talk and as I saw he just wasn't getting there I whipped out that "N" word. That did it and he landed a very well placed and, in my opinion, overly enthusiastic fist to my head that under normal circumstances would have staggered me but not dropped me. I chose to fall to the floor just to make him look good.
Wow, the dude did hit hard! I have to wonder how it would have gone in a real fight. His buddies, his fellow club members who were watching to see how it would go, rushed over and picked me up as well as to hold him back (he played the role really well), apologized to me, dusted me off, and dragged him out of the bar.
During our pre-fight talk he said he would be back tomorrow night to buy me another beer for helping him out.
The owner came over to me after they left and asked me what the hell happened and asked if I wanted her to call the police. I explained things to her and told her everything was just fine and the police weren't needed. She told me she knows those guys and gave me a beer on the house.
This morning my head and neck are a bit sore, but otherwise I have no regrets over the previous evening. It's not like I've never taken a punch before.