The 'Omeboy

This is Omero.

[caption id="attachment_733" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Bappity Boopity!!!"][/caption]

Omero runs the Milan location of the company that rents motorcycles to suckers like me. When I first arrived, Omero seemed unhappy to be there. The conversation went something like this:

Me speaking terrible Italian: "Hi, my name is GymCharles, I'm here to pick up the bike."
Omero speaking english: "Yeah. Been waiting. Here is bike. Put gas here. Change suspension push this button. Don't push any other button. You have payment?"

One wouldn't expect that kind of gruff attitude based on the picture above, and it was just one tiny conversation between the two of us that changed Omero's entire countenance and personality. He said: "You take bike for month. Where you go?" As soon as I said that I intended to visit the Dolomite Mountains Omero's eyes became as big as dutch pancakes and he scurried off to his office. When he came back he swept clean the top of a desk with one arm and with the other arm spread out some maps.

[caption id="attachment_734" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Stellar Cartography"][/caption]

The next 15 minutes should have been documented by anthropologists. To my knowledge, no one has captured the moment that a bromance forms, despite the amazing technological advances that we have with modern science. In fact, the recent discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle was only confirmed today, and yet even though we know bromances exist, no one has ever captured one as it comes in to existence. For an instant, that motorcycle shop became a super collider, and Omero and I were just two particles whose common nucleus was the love of motorcycling.

During that time, it was all I could do to keep up with him as I wrote down all the routes that he suggested I take. Eventually, another customer came to return a bike, and our conversation ended. Before I left the shop, I took one more picture:

[caption id="attachment_735" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair"][/caption]

The picture didn't turn out well, but the gist is that all a rider needs to know about a bike is where to put gas, where to sit, and how to go. Some of the items in the picture are:

• "Gas Goes Here"
• "Ass Goes Here"
• "Turn With This Part"
• "Point This Part Where You Want To Go"

Coming up next is the story of the day that I set out, and there are a couple of glitches which lead me to believe that the picture above may actually have been Omero's manual for prepping the bike.