The Triumph and the Chocolate Milkshake

A “Good news, Bad news” very short story for very young motorcyclists.

Once upon a time, a nice man went on a motorcycle ride. It was a very nice day–the last warm day of fall! The man rode the motorcycle up and down hills, through the mountains, into the country. It was a very nice ride. 

As the man was nearing his destination…what was that he saw? A little red light on his instrument thingee? “Oh, my!” the man privately exclaimed–“a HOT warning light!” The responsible man pulled over, and his very hot motorcycle engine stalled. It would have to be a “Call the family and Trailer Me Home” evening. And so it was.

After he was home, the man discovered that he indeed had LOW COOLANT. In fact, it was worse than that…he had NO COOLANT! And NO COOLANT is BAD! The man put coolant in his motorcycle, and put it away. He thought, “I’ll just see what’s wrong with this motorcycle in a week or two!” And then he went inside…and turned on the TV.

Once it was well into March of the following year, and the First Warm Day came about, the man convinced himself to go into his garage and determine WHAT was wrong with his motorcycle. And so, he did. Tinker, tinker, fiddle, drop, swear, tinker, fiddle, fiddle. Eventually, the man decided, “Now, I will try to start my motorcycle. If it starts, I’ll change the oil and even repair all these 25-year old rotten rubber lines. But if it does NOT start, I will be mad. And then, I guess I will just put the pretty gas tank on the shelf, and part the rest of this sucker out on eBay.” THAT is what the man thought!

Well, the motorcycle DID start! The man was indeed happy! At least somewhat happy, because now he knew he would probably not be buying a super-cool low-miles clean brightly-colored used circa-2013 Triumph Thruxton that he had fantasized about, to replace his present motorcycle. But, the man was grateful. Having his motorcycle start was certainly Good News!

“Well,” the man said, “Now that I know it runs, I’ll go ahead and put that $60 worth of ridiculously-overpriced fully synthetic oil in my motorcycle. And take some time to fix all those little things that I always ignore. I will be a good motorcycle owner.” The man was happy. He was so happy that he got himself a beer and turned up the radio. THIS would be FUN—a Good Day indeed!

Soon the man had another surprise. Actually, two surprises. As the oil came out, it was like a milk shake! In fact, it was EXACTLY like a milk shake–those big chocolate McDonald’s ones, when adults don’t care about their weight anymore and try not to think about the ingredients. Yes, VERY MUCH like that! But that was not all–the surprised man was to have another discovery!

As the five quarts of milkshake-oil continued gurgling out and soon overfilled the eight quart drain pan, the man realized something else. HERE was where his coolant had gone! Oh, my, this wasn’t good at all. In fact, as the man considered this chocolate-mud sloshing around the bearings of his highly stressed modern engine, he pondered the worst. This certainly seemed like Bad News!

The man cleaned up the mess and thought about things. “Well,” he thought, “it didn’t sound that bad when it was running. And, since I’ve got to remove the ENTIRE CARBURETOR BANK AND FILTER BOX just to change the cracking fuel line, anyway, maybe I’ll just go farther and install a new head gasket. I’ll take the time to do this right!“

He thought about how good he would feel, at the end of this year’s riding season and after all the wonderful riding days of summer had passed, when he had finally gotten around to fixing his motorcycle, just in time to winterize it. Maybe, the man thought, this could be a Good News story, after all! He would triumph over adversity, and show that he could work on a big, modern street motorcycle! The man felt…OK. 

And besides, the man thought…there’s still that used super-cool low-miles clean brightly-colored used Triumph Thruxton out there, somewhere!

THE END