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Hi Everyone!
Happy Fall! It has been a while since I last wrote, so the length of this email is pretty long. Enjoy!
A few weeks back, I was driving through Camden (an area of extreme summer wealth with lots of cute restraunts and large schooners) with a friend and I noticed a really nice purse in the middle of the street. Given the financial status of this area, there was a huge incentive to return that purse to its owner so I could be rewarded with some sort of "thank you" compensation. So, I pulled a u-turn in the road and got my friend to open the passenger side door and grab the purse. He grabbed it, shut the door, I sped off, and he excitedly opened the purse to see what bounty was inside. Suddenly, an intoxicating stench burst through the car and my friend exclaimed: "POOP, AHHH, THIS PURSE IS FULL OF POOP!!!" I quickly looked over and sure enough, someone had filled a Coach purse FULL of poo. We didn't know what to do since we didn't want to get a fine for littering and a gas station/trash can was no where in site. It was a miracle that we didn't wreck or hit any tourists trying to cross the street, since I was uncontrollably laughing at the hilarity of the situation and crying/choking from the terrible smell inside the car. A minute or so later, I pulled over at a tourist help booth and my friend jumped out of the car with the purse, literally parting the seas of tourists as he quickly deposited the purse in a trash can near the help window. I really hope this was a prank and will one day end up on You Tube, it goes down as one of the best pranks ever played on me.
Ok, I'll change the subject up a little bit and talk about the added value of me being on this island. I'm pretty convinced that before I arrived on this island, there wasn't much to talk about. After a recent event, which I'll mention in a minute, I've been the topic of conversation at church, at dinner tables, on the VHF radio, at the lunch cart, and everywhere in between. Here's why...
I nerdily lost a bet with a friend of mine over the identification of a mushroom. I've come to find out that my tragic downfall lurks within the realm of thinking I'm so right about something that I make ridiculous bets, bets that you couldn't imagine yourself doing but it doesn't matter because you are right and won't be doing it. Well, the consequence of this incorrect identification was that I had to ride on my motorcycle....through Bar Harbor (another huge tourist area)....on Labor Day Weekend...naked. (By the way, I drive a tiny motorcycle now. It gets 80mpg and is a lot of fun.)
After calling around to various police stations in the area and posing the question: "What are the legal implications of a female riding her motorcycle naked?," I quickly found out that though women are exempt from indecent exposure in Maine because you cannot see genitalia, I would have to battle this out in court. In fear of getting fired from my job and making national headlines, I decided to wear pantyhose, two pieces of yellow reflective tape, and have a motorcycle awareness slogan written on my back.
We took off from an over-crowded grocery store parking lot. 90,000 people were estimated to have been in Bar Harbor that Sunday morning, thanks to a few cruise ships that had just landed- and I'm pretty sure that every single one of them saw me. Some jaws dropped, others jeered, and a few women would quickly (and aggressively) stow their children behind them with looks of disgust on their faces. The ride was not quick, especially with a man in front of me who stopped for anyone who even had an inkling of crossing the street, just so he could keep looking in his rear-view mirror at the spectacle behind him. After a few thousand camera phone pictures and finger points, we finally arrived back at the grocery store, took some pictures with a group of Asian tourists, and put clothes back on...successfully completing the task without getting arrested! Now to how the island found out about this stunt...
The only person on the island that knew about this was Anna, my 78 year old housemate/best friend/island matriarch, who thought it appropriate to stand up during the "joys and concerns" portion of church to ask the congregation to pray for me. She explained how I had lost a bet and left the house wearing her pantyhose and two circles of yellow reflective tape in an attempt to bring about more awareness towards motorcyclists. Immediately after, an elderly man named Buddy excitedly and half seriously stood up and voted that church be dismissed so everyone could head over to Bar Harbor. The Reverend dismissed his outcry and called for a prayer. He prayed for the health of some island people, the war in Iraq, and then for Eliza, "As she rides her motorcycle through Bar Harbor wearing nothing but Anna's pantyhose and some tape." According to Ruth, the Reverend's wife, the whole church was cracking up- a first for her husband (who she thinks is boring).
If someone didn't know who I was before, they know who I am now. I can't go anywhere without someone commenting on my stunt, but it's all in good fun. Today even, I was lobster fishing with a friend of mine and one lobsterman nearby recognized me and called over on the VHF to say that he enjoyed seeing the pictures (located on Anna's refrigerator). Without fail, no less than 10 other lobstermen got on the VHF to ask where these pictures were, to comment on the situation, or to ask me what I was doing tonight. Yeah, it is going to be a while before I live this one down.
