Don't have anything in your mouth when you read this...

...because this blog is not responsible for spit take-related damage.

Here I am on a Friday night with a brand-new hard drive, catching up on my Internet reading, when I found this. I'm not sure what - I think it must've been the picture of the bike done up as a cow - that reminded me of one of the more bizarre conversations I've ever been a part of.

It was about 10 years ago, when I was a college student who'd naively volunteered to "help" costume a high school production of "Annie Get Your Gun," which, in volunteer language, means I was now the totally inexperienced costume director for a period piece with no budget. So, anyway, I'm in a fabric store in downtown Mt. Airy, N.C. (this is back when small towns actually had locally owned stores on their Main Streets), trying to figure out how little off-white brushed cotton I can get away with per each of 14 dance-able skirts, when this happens:

A young woman about my age approaches the cutting table...

(Aside - if you've never been in a fabric store, basically, you browse through bolts of material and then take your pick up to a giant table where a (usually) elderly woman cuts the length that you need. One yard, two yards, 18 inches, whatever - and the materials are priced by the yard. It's generally considered bad form not to know how much you need before you get to the cutting table. End aside.)

... holding a bolt of neon, zebra-print super-plush fabric. If memory serves, it was purple. Its pile, or depth (I guess), was roughly four inches. This was seriously plushy fur. Also zebra-print. Anyway.

The elderly fabric store owner asked the young woman how much material she needed. She didn't know. Well, what are you making?, the owner asked. Like me, she probably assumed that this was for some Pebbles Flintstone-related costume piece. Oh, no.

"My boyfriend's furring out his crotch rocket," the young woman said. Yes, I realize that this might be the single funniest thing I've ever written, and no, I'm not making it up.

I attempted to translate, since at that point in my life I was aware that "crotch rocket" was a type of motorcycle - something our very elderly and previously dignified fabric store owner was not aware of. "Do you just want to cover the seat?" I asked. "Oh, no," she said. "He wants to fur out the whole thing." I think we suggested that she measure the areas that needed to be fur-covered, and I (regretably) left before they resolved the whole thing.

But about a year later I saw, while getting a milkshake at Sonic on the way home from rehearsal, some sort of motorcycle with all its metal surfaces covered with neon-zebra faux fur. So, one of two things is true. Either my fabric store friend figured out her dilemma, or there are more than one of them in the world.

The moral of the story is, thank goodness for Google.