michaelpemulisofficial

[michaelpemulisofficial]

When you talk to bicycle people, they have a lot of things to say. Some of those things sound a little bit kooky. Last month, a guy at the free bike repair co-op (I was borrowing several sockets and a hammer) was telling me that riding a bicycle around lets you know your neighbours better. Shyeah right, I snorted to myself. Because you'll yell at them for trying to back over you with their Acura RDX.

They're right, though. Throughout history, the bicycle has brought people together. Because you get tired and have to stop all the time, it means you visit lemonade stands more frequently. Lemonade stands, while an illegal form of dining establishment that often evades enforcement and judiciary oversight due to their use of child labour, are often also run by an adult. And nothing makes an adult happier than seeing you buy stuff from their kids so that they can go back inside sooner and drive their Acura RDX somewhere.

Once you've made that face time, it's hard for people to forget. You become part of the tribe in their minds. Our species evolved looking at a bunch of other apes hanging out in close proximity, not with those same apes behind tinted glass travelling a hundred kilometres an hour in a school zone. That bicycle is closer to what one of those apes would ride than not. If they had been invented just a few years earlier, the Bible would be full of rad BMX tips instead of a bunch of stories about walking places. Would Christ drive an Acura RDX? Depends on which dealership you ask the salesman at.

What I'm trying to get at is: go out there for a ride. Every alley has a bicycle or two abandoned in it, so the cost of entry is low. Meet your neighbours. Drink their kids' lemon-adjacent sugar beverages. Ingratiate yourself to them subconsciously. You never know when you'll need to borrow some tools from them, or have them hide you in the back of their Acura RDX to get through a police cordon when the shit really hits the fan. I will admit that's a good use for one. Lots of room back there. Hard to conceal a fugitive in a Cannondale.

[michaelpemulisofficial]

They say that good fences make good neighbours, so mine must be creating some real shitheads. Ever since our ancient ancestors came down from the trees and built the first 1800-square-foot bungalows, we've needed fences to keep the people around us from stealing our shit.

Now, I hear what you're saying, and it's pretty mean. I do too have things worth protecting. Each and every one of these trashy old Mopar midsize-compact economy-luxury cars has at least something nice about it. Hubcaps, on this one. Radiator cap, that one. There's some real value in here.

Also, the Facebook landlord group in which I impersonate my landlord in order to perpetuate the belief that he is still alive but just in some distant foreign country where he never gets around to cashing my rubber cheques has been telling me a lot of crazy shit about how easily I can be sued if anyone gets crushed into tomato paste trying to steal a catalytic converter off any of these Carter Era beauties. A fence it is.

You might not think a fence is a complicated or expensive process, but it turns out to be both of those things. Wood costs an absolute shit ton of money these days – it doesn't grow on trees, you know. And then there's all the digging. Maybe some of you out there are real good at making holes over and over and then sticking a chunk of perfectly good wood in them, but not this cowboy. I had enough that I decided to go rent a post hole digger – there's nothing I like more than a specialized tool, even better if it actually saves me labour – but the rental company wanted money. And a valid drivers' license!

Pish tosh, I told myself on the way home. I had plenty of motive power around the property, lots of stranded four, six, and eight bangers that were stuck in a car with a blown-up transmission or gone-to-heaven bodywork. Throwing an auger on that sucker wouldn't take a minute. And, just my luck, the hypocrites at the rental agency didn't have a fence around their property. I ended up "renting" just the auger in the middle of the night, and hooking it up to the sweetest little AMC 360 V8 you ever did see.

Except I mixed up my engines. Real easy to do at night, because I don't really have "electricity" at my property. I have joined the exclusive club of folks who have seen a nitromethane-fuelled twin-turbocharged big block Chevy bore a hole directly into the heart of the Earth. Wish I could do it again for you, but as you can see, that hole is plenty deep. In retrospect, I probably should not have put an entire motorcycle gas tank on there. Think it's still going.

If good fences make good neighbours, then hopefully a three hundred foot deep hole with absolutely no lateral support and a howling V8 at the bottom of it will also help discourage those pesky hood ornament thieves. I'll let you know if I ever hear any of their screams.

[michaelpemulisofficial]

image file forensic specialist investigating a folder: careful... that's a portable network graphic. it may have a transparent background.

[michaelpemulisofficial]

when george h.w. bush was naming george w. bush he was like you can have most of my name... but i'm keeping herbert. ok bro 😂😂

[michaelpemulisofficial]

[michaelpemulisofficial]

[michaelpemulisofficial]

[michaelpemulisofficial]

when the albums so good u get kinda scared

[michaelpemulisofficial]

lets play throw each other down the concrete staircase

[michaelpemulisofficial]

there’s a lot to unpack here

[michaelpemulisofficial]

When your run out, of cups… no prablem for me 😎 My milk apple cup

[michaelpemulisofficial]

I don't care how bad life gets i'm not watching Love Island

[michaelpemulisofficial]

Having parents who aren't as bad as they used to be is crazy cause they'll be sitting there doing some normal shit and you're like kubrick staring at them

[michaelpemulisofficial]

If self abuse ever did any good you would have flourished many moons ago.

[michaelpemulisofficial]

[michaelpemulisofficial]

Okay but seriously… China gagged the whole world with this everybody else just pack it up it’s over