Don’t judge a beef jerky eating, Harley rider by his cover

I’ve always wanted a pipe wrench.   The name sounds tough, combining two rugged words that make one super jagged word that actually serves a purpose and is made of steel?  That is bordering on testosterone overload.   I have a pair of Channel Lock pliers.  They do roughly the same thing as a pipe wrench.  But if a pipe wrench is Chuck Norris, a pair of Channel Lock pliers is John Stamos.

This summer the family was vacationing in northern Michigan.   Northern Michigan is a beautiful area where everybody can fix their own car and you should never, and I mean never, use ‘the lake’ as a navigational tool.  “Our place is near the lake”, I said to a lady while asking for directions.    She smirked, politely told me that there are hundreds of lakes in the area.  I then proceeded to ignore her directions, causing a 90 minute scenic detour on dirt roads.

On the way to our destination we stopped off at a store that only sold beef jerky.  In addition to people in northern Michigan fixing their own cars and living near lakes; they probably cure their own beef jerky.  Beef jerky sounds manly too.  I went in, used their toilet and had a look around the jerky store.

Dozens of variety of jerky, so many varieties I can’t begin to name them all.  However, I suspect they were all meat, possibly killed by Ted Nugent (or Kid Rock) and quite tasty.  Despite the fact that beef jerky gives me gas I ate them down quickly and proceeded back to the car.

On the way back I passed two very burley looking men on motorcycles.  I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were discussing, but I suspect it was about Ted Nugent, making beef jerky, fixing their own bikes or possibly Kid Rock.

Once I got inside the car my wife reminded me that we needed to feed More Mojo.

“Sweetie, I’m not going to feed him because there are the two motorcycle men there and I’ll look like a wuss”, I said.  I didn’t think that the motorcycle men would eat me or beat me up.  It’s just that the optics of man feeding 6-month old isn’t nearly as manly as two men wearing leather on motorcycles.

The sonic assault being delivered from More Mojo overrode any potentially bad optics and I started to give him the bottle.

My wife, ever the freedom fighter for stay at home dads, left the car and started to talk to the bikers.

“Sir, can you re-assure my husband of his manliness?  He’s feeling like a wuss because he’s in the car feeding our baby and you’re out here”, my bride said to the two motorcycle men.

“Hey man, don’t feel weird, just a couple hours earlier I was feeding my grand baby”, one of them said.

I would love to say that I heard his reply and joined them on a manly trip of beef jerky eating, bow hunting extravaganza set to the soundtrack of Ted Nugent.  Bud I didn’t hear him, so I kept feeding More Mojo until my bride came back in the car and we waved goodbye to our new friends.

As we drove away she told me about their conversation and I realized that it’s OK to feed babies in the midst of super manly men.  In that instance they were Chuck Norris using a pipe wrench and I was John Stamos using Channel Lock pliers.  There’s nothing wrong with being John Stamos and I’m OK with that, let’s just leave the Olsen’s out of this.