I had an '83 Suzuki 850 but what I really wanted was a Harley. My wife, by this time, had become an Emergency Physician and was pretty anti-motorcycle and I knew that she would not like to hear that I was thinking of upgrading to a new Harley Sportster so I decided on a slightly different approach. I thought I would hide the purchase from her until sometime in the future when I could say "That bike? Oh I have had that for some time now."
I knew she hated motorcycles so much that I could sneak a new Sportster into the garage and swap it out with the Suzuki and she would never know the difference. She would just assume I had added some chrome to the Suzuki and maybe did something to the mufflers. We generally keep separate bank accounts and I had a pretty good retirement-savings account that I could "borrow" from and she would be none the wiser.
So in March of '04 I trotted off to Liberty North (the same one Dan "Screw Loose" Cunningham used for his "upgrade") and ordered up my XL1200R with a few enhancements (I paid the Harley-Tax up front). They didn't have everything in stock so I had to order a few things and they would call, in a few days, when it was ready. BIG MISTAKE.
Well, when the bike was ready they called. Only problem was that I was not at home and my wife took the message from the cheery-voiced salesperson...."Tell your husband that his New Harley is in!!!" "What new Harley?" "The one he just bought." "Oh."
When I got home form work, the excrement had been thoroughly dispersed by the proverbial bladed contrivance. I was in the dog house, bigtime. I knew she'd be pissed but I was not prepared for the level of pissdom she was capable of achieving. Hell, it was MY money which I had SAVED over a period of years and furthermore I was PAYING MYSELF BACK over 5 years at an APR of 6%. What could be a sweeter deal? Well, she didn't see it that way and even went to see a divorce lawyer to inquire as to how the spoils of our 30-year marriage could be split. The lawyer apparently told her that she didn't have much of a case which even made her more pissed (if that were possible) but over the next three years she cooled down a bit. But I should point out that over the intervening period she has NEVER been on the bike, not even for 1 microsecond.
The only worse case that I have seen was the poor fellow who, recently, was selling his brand-new rice rocket on eBay because, as he put it, he had "not obtained proper permission from a beautiful and loving wife." He goes on to say "Apparently 'Do whatever the fu*k you want' doesn't mean what I thought it meant." I can feel your pain, dude.
So, that's my lesson on how to purchase a motorcycle...NOT.
