Beer Goggle Bikers
The Yamaha YT115 on delivery day, March 1992
I believe there will be a strong argument for the ‘cooling off period’ law when people want to buy guns. Instead of flipping out completely as well as running to the nearest gun shop in order to buy the ultimate argument winner, people are forced to calm down as well as make rational decisions before they blow each some other’s brains out. Of course, some people can stay angry for a very long time so This specific will be not the perfect system of governance, however I’m sure the idea has prevented more than one ‘crime of passion’, as well as probably a ‘crime of parking place’ or two within the places where the law exists.
I believe there should also be a mandatory ‘sobering up period’ law before people clearly under the influence of alcohol can be allowed to buy anything (or go home with anyone). Case in point, one Friday afternoon in 1992, three friends of mine as well as I were walking through a mall in Jakarta when we happened upon a display of Yamaha motorcycles. the idea was pay day, we had a lot of cash in our pockets as well as we had just left the pub after an approximately ten-course liquid lunch, so the shiny fresh motorbikes caught our eyes. Long story short, 30 minutes later we had handed over the cash, signed some papers, agreed some kind of deal which has a handshake as well as staggered away.
After we had waved bye-bye to the beaming salesman, we decided to stop at another bar as well as have another quick drink to celebrate our purchases. Of course, we were well past the point of no return by This specific time, so the idea was actually around 2am before we took the magic carpet ride home to the house we shared in Tomang. We all made the idea to our beds as well as fell into comatose sleep, taking comfort within the knowledge which the next day was Saturday so we didn’t need to get up for work.
At 9am the following morning, I woke up to see my housemate Tony standing at the end of my bed wearing nothing however his underpants. My head was pounding, my vision was blurred as well as for a moment I thought he was sleepwalking, however my brain eventually commenced to extract a few words through the grunting noises he was creating. “Truck… F***ing motorbikes…” I thought he was complaining about traffic noise. I concentrated on Tony’s face as hard as I could as well as tried to sharpen my focus. I tried hard to process what he was saying as he grunted louder as well as louder while pointing at the window, as well as after a while I realised which has a start what he was actually saying. I jumped out of bed to look for myself, as well as sure enough, outside the house there was a truck with four f***ing motorbikes on the idea. Memories of the previous day came flooding back. Oh sh*t. What had we done?
After we had signed for the delivery, we stood within the driveway in our dressing gowns staring silently at four brand fresh as well as identical black, yellow as well as orange Yamaha YT115s. They were a hell of a lot smaller than they had appeared the day before within the mall, as well as they were not nearly as cool as they had seemed when we had sat on them, leaning left as well as right as well as creating silly motorbike noises while enthusiastically planning motorbike camping trips across the archipelago. My friend Mark broke the silence. “Do you think I can ride here without a license?” The rest of us shrugged as well as muttered unintelligibly. Dave chipped in which has a relevant question. “Which one will be mine?” We all shrugged as well as muttered again. Tony then spoke very seriously, putting an immediate stop to all the shrugging as well as mumbling as well as inducing hysterical laughter. “How the f*** do you drive one of these f***ing things anyway?” He’d never driven a motorbike before in his life.
A mandatory sobering up period of at least 24 hours might definitely have saved us two million Rupiah each – in those days about a thousand dollars as well as almost an entire month’s salary!
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Beer Goggle Bikers
Beer Goggle Bikers