Archive for the 'Flashback' Category

After enjoying superb sushi and other great Asian food from some of Yerevan’s best cooks on a friend’s goodbye party at his house, we wanted to continue with an afterparty. Carlos is a marine at the Marine Security Guard Detachment Yerevan, so we decided to continue the party over at the Embassy. The Embassy car arrived to pick everyone up and drive them over, while I rode my motorcycle.

It was freezing cold late in the night, so I was pushing the motorcycle to get to the destination as quickly as possible. The entrance and the parking lot for the personnel are on the other side of the embassy. That means one has to ride all the way to the ramp across the road to make a complex U-turn and ride back. And here is Murphy’s law about rushing to awesome parties in action: just after the U-turn a traffic police car put on the siren and pulled me over. Speeding offenses in Armenia are usually fine and cheap, you can generally get away with just 5,000 drams, but then it struck me (Muphy’s law in action number two) — I left all my insurance papers in a friend’s car during the winter and never managed to take them back! Legally, this meant 50,000 drams. Realistically, this meant a little more than 5,000 drams (depending on luck and sympathy) after a long, tedious and largely humiliating chat with a person whose IQ, statistically, is below the city average. I can handle that most of the time; sometimes it’s even entertaining. But there was a party waiting for me ahead that had all the chances of being more entertaining than a conversation with an Armenian traffic police officer late in the night next to a stinking water reservoir! Now here goes all of the above paragraph and its continuation flashing through my brain on that very moment:

“Fucking cold!… Fucking pothole!… Faster’s always good when flying over potholes… Uh! (a traffic police car)… OK they won’t pull a motorcycle over… (the cops put on the siren) God fucking damn it!!!!… OK it’s only 5,000 drams (turning on the parking signal with my frozen left thumb)… I’ll explain them it was cold and the street was empty so I pushed… Shit, the insurance papers!!!!… (pressing the turn signal button to switch it off)… Only about 1km to the embassy… Honda CBF500 against Toyota Corolla… lets roll!”

“0434, driver of the motorcycle, STOP IMMEDIATELY!!!!”

Have you ever drag-raced with the police? It’s one hell of a fun! And guess what?

A 500cc Honda parallel twin engine carrying 195 kilos including its own weight plus 65 kilos of a fully–equipped Synopsys programmer smokes a Toyota Corolla carrying two tentatively chubby Armenian policemen on a distance of 1000 meters. Easily.

I threw myself towards the personnel parking entrance gate and stopped. After some seconds the cops pushed their brakes right behind me, so close I couldn’t get out if I wanted. Felt much like being in a sandwich. You know, one of those steel-gate—armenian-policemen sandwiches! Among the other ingredients, this one had some meat, a decent sausage, and a motorcycle inside. The Armenian security guards walked out of their booth amused, watching the sandwich.

“Get off the motorcycle!” Yelled the police car from behind me. I pretended I didn’t hear it and looked at the security guard that hadn’t yet said anything, and at that point was just looking at me inquisitively. Even though he had no idea what the story was about, I felt like deep inside his heart was on my side.

“I need to see Carlos!” I put out in English, trying to mimic some sort of an American accent.

“Carlos??” asked the guard

“Zero four three four, get off the motorcycle RIGHT NOW!!” Yelled the policemen again. I wondered if he realized he was being annoying. “Get a life”, crossed quickly through my mind. I repeated:

“Please sir, I really need to see Carlos right now!”

“He is a marine. This is very important!!” I cried, not even looking at the cops behind me.

The security guard looked at my visor, hesitated for a moment, then pressed to open the gate open. “He’s American. Drive off!” he threw his hand at the police car. Throwing the hand worked like a Jedi trick — the flashing siren that reflected on my visor through my mirrors during all this time immediately faded off.

“It’s always the same on this fucking road” mumbled one of the cops, annoyed. “Way to annoy me with the stupid mike!” I thought, as they drove away.

I smoothly rode into the parking lot and started waiting for Carlos, leaning on the bike. They hadn’t arrived yet.

Disclaimer: All characters and events in this post — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated…..poorly. This post contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone.