A redhead walks into a Harley dealership...

My hand is not better. Even though no bones were broken, something is messed up in the knuckle-that-was-almost-ground-down-to-the-bone area. The knuckle is swollen, and I have pain going down my hand. Grasping things is touch-and-go, and I still have to bandage the area because the skin is still growing back. The bones in the palm area of both hands still hurt; I imagine they're badly bruised. Are you grossed out yet? Good, because that's the worst of the worst.

The insurance company isn't too thrilled with my poor bike, so I'm going to trade said bike in along with the Sportster from Hell to get a BRAND NEW HD ROAD KING POLICE BIKE. It will look something like this:

The badassery on this bike is making me giddy with anticipation.ABS brakes! Six gallon gas tank! 103 cubic inch motor! Pretty lights! The options to get the exhaust and front forks a shiny black! A comfortable seat(HDs are notorious for having the most ungodly uncomfortable stock seats)!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story behind this goes as follows:

After the accident, the bike gets towed to local HD dealership so that the insurance company can get a look at it. While I'm there watching the bike get dropped off, the service guy whom I regularly deal with shakes his head at the bike, starts it up, and upon hearing its very rough stammering, shuts it off and says I should consider getting a new bike. I mumbled something about how I always wanted a police bike. He says, You could trade in your Sportster along with the Softail to help pay for a new bike! Sneaky bastard.

Two weeks later and I'm ready to trade the bike in and order the police bike. Problem is, getting a police bike isn't supposed to be easy for a civilian. A cop can order a police bike from Harley any damn time they please. Us dipshit civilians? We get 'em through auctions or otherwise used. Except, if a new bike is ordered by the dealer and then sits on the dealer floor for 120 days, then they can sell the bike to any yahoo that walks in the door.

Hello, you may call me Ms. Yahoo.

As I said, after two weeks of fighting with the insurance company and having to tell and retell my accident adventures to many other insurance companies and having to drive to work because my hand is is a mutated claw and I can't trust the Sportster to not die on me anyway, I waltzed into the dealership with the idea to ask about getting a police bike.

They try to sell me a very ugly used police bike they happen to have on the floor. No, I will NOT buy a bike with a shitty paint job of the POW We Will Never Forget logo on the front. Then they try to tell me that they could take a regular Road King and make it look more like a police bike. I stared at them with my best petulance combined with Full Metal Jacket's Private Pyle's thousand yard stare before he takes out Gunnery Sgt. Hartman and said,

I WANT A POLICE BIKE. WHAT DO WE HAVE TO DO TO GET ONE?

They still didn't think I was serious, but one of the sales dudes (who's the son of one of the dealer owners) takes down my information and says he'll see what he can do. Fine.

I wait a few days. He actually emails me back saying they might be able to find what I want at a different dealer, which means I don't have to wait for this dealer to order the bike, get the bike delivered, and then have the bike sit for 120 days before I could buy it.  But then...silence. Oh no. This will not do. So I email him asking if I should expect to put a deposit on the bike once it's delivered and has to sit on the dealer floor. That woke him up. Apparently the dealer found a police bike in northern California. I went down to the dealer yesterday and wrote a check for the deposit.

BOOM. Bike on order.

I have the feeling this is the last bike I will buy. Not because I feel a sense of doom and foreboding, but I've had a serious yen for HD police bikes for at least a decade. A DECADE. The opportunity, no matter how infuriating and weird and painful has come up, and so I shall take it. It's time.

I'm going to miss the Softail and the Sportster, but times have changed, and so has my tastes and needs in a motorcycle. Wish me luck!