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Couch Potatoes, I am Here
for You!
Buy an airline ticket these days and you might
notice something new. For an optional fee, you can make your
flight "carbon neutral" -- the idea being that the fee you've
paid offsets greenhouse gas emissions by supporting clean air
projects like wind farms, solar panels, planting trees, etc. When I learned about this, I made one of my usual off-the-wall, "everything must be related to motorcycles in some way" connections and got to thinking about the guilt that must be felt by couch potatoes. You know the type: sitting in their favorite Barcolounger in boxers and a beer-stained wife beater t-shirt, Budweiser in one hand and a bag of Cheetos in the other, gut doing the bowl-full-of-jelly thing in synch with the laugh track of their favorite sit-com. Or maybe they're camped out on the sweat-stained, rump-sprung sofa in an oversized jersey featuring the number of their favorite athlete, howling at the game on the boob tube, leaning to one side every now and then to rip off a fart. In the tide-like ebb and flow of channel-surfing, they occasionally run across a repeat of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman in Long Way Round, or Ricky Carmichael running just enough AMA motocross races to spoil James Stewart's 2007 party, or even one of those silly chopper shows on the Discovery Channel, and they think, "You know, I should get off the couch and do something like that." A second later, however, they've moved on to the next channel in the lineup, chuckling over something like America's Funniest Home Videos or puzzled by the complicated plot of a Baywatch repeat. But the guilt remains, festering like a lost pork rind in the folds of a circus fat lady. And the poor bastards really need some way to offset it. Something akin to a big corporation buying carbon neutral credits to make up for the pollution they're generating. So I'm offering here -- for the first time ever! -- the opportunity to buy Adventure Rider credits. You pay me to go riding for you. Just stay there on the sofa, soft drink and double-stuffed Oreos at hand, and I will go riding for you and send back photos. Your money will be used for tires (Lord knows how fast I go through those!) and gasoline. While you're safe on the Lazy Boy, I'll ride my sportbikes at totally ridiculous and unsafe speeds, risking life and limb. While you relax in air-conditioned splendor, the dualsport and I will suffer the extreme heat of America's deserts and the chill bite of her mountains. Bugs will coat my body, hail stones will ping off my helmet, and friendly police officers will ulcerate my stomach, but I won't complain one bit, mind you, and you -- you, oh guilt-free hedonist! -- shall be free to worship as you choose at the opulent alters of comfort and entertainment. Paypal works just fine. Money orders. Cashier's Checks. Heck, I'll even take personal checks! Need me to ride by your home, so you don't even have to go to the post office? Just say the word! You can live your life couch potato neutral ... doing what you love, guilt free ... while I get to do what I love. Talk about a win-win situation!
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