root beer floats

My good friend Tek, one who tosses off spot-on advice on a regular basis, recently mentioned root beer floats in a night-out tweet. It reminded me of a period of several days when some bike-riding friends of mine (did I mention I ride bikes?) were planning a ride on the freeway during rush hour traffic. "If you rode a bike, you'd be home by now." People wore capes.

Debate raged about the ride's legality, which is absurd. Naysayers suggested skipping the ride entirely, and Yaysayers (or Sayers) looked for loopholes and suggested playing dumb. But why play dumb? This was my response:

I suffer from infrequent, short-lived, and severe bouts of insomnia. Once every three or four months, couple days. They give me very lucid dreams when I finally sleep, and then I remember the dreams very well. I dreamt about this ride last night. We fought up until the second we got on the freeway, but then the ride went without a hitch. Very slow traffic meant lots of weaving, lots of waving, lots of startled people but little anger. More like disbelief followed by honking and nervous laughter and even some cheering. Then, "If you rode a bike you'd be home by now!" and they were less cheerful. Then traffic picked up, and cars could actually move to the side to let cop cars through, and they did, and we hightailed it outta there. Then we got root beer floats. Well. I'm not sure if the root beer floats part was the same dream, or the next dream. But we should consider them. They were really good.
I'm being flip. But I'm also being serious. Yes, there are dangers, and most likely it will not happen as smoothly as I dreamt. Drivers will be mad, and maybe aggressive and confused, and they'll probably call the cops on us if the cops aren't already waiting. People will probably get arrested. I, not being the fastest rider on this thread, will probably get arrested. It's more a matter of whether or not I'm willing to accept getting arrested or not. People on this thread have gotten arrested for far less.

But think about it. Do you want to have it on your record that you got arrested for biking on the Santa Monica Freeway? I do. It's absurd and delicious and perfect, and it makes my nose tingle, and it makes me laugh, just like a root beer float. Of course I want that.

I think they must have been the same dream.

The results of the ride were a lot of hooting and hollering, mixed reactions (but a lot of support) from motorists, one law-enforcement warning (footage of the cape-wearing rider getting that warning at the end of this video), and no tickets. Some riders went out for root beer floats afterwards.

And I still want that ticket.