When I was about 10, my parents gave me a Barbie doll. I hated Barbie dolls. I’d usually team up with my brother and pull their arms and heads off. But this one wore a leather jacket and drove a pink Harley Davidson, so she was cool. I didn’t play with her, or the motorcycle — she was too cool for that, and so was I. She lived on the top bookshelf in my bedroom to admire and get dusty.

Last week I dreamed that I had a real pink Harley Davidson, and I was riding in a large group down the city streets. Every person had a pink Harley. Many were women, and there were some pudgy men wearing open-faced helmets that reminded me of the second World War. You couldn’t see ahead so we bumped into each other at every stop sign.

We took a break at a bluff overlooking a river gorge. Could have been the Columbia river anywhere in Washington State. Our leading couple faced us with a bull horn and began an engagement and entertainment routine to sweep up a feeling of belonging and group mentality. She asked, in a somewhat testing way, who would be willing to sell their pink Harley Davidson right now? I felt ashamed, but would absolutely do it. My partner at home had a much more attractive BMW 1200-series bike, and I had been wanting to buy something more similar to that.

Looking around, I saw other raise their hand, so I stuck mine up in the air as well. Sure, I’ll sell it. I hate pink.

I looked over to my left, where there must have been a bird or something that distracted me. My mind wandered, and my hand stayed up in the air. When I looked back to the line of pink motorcyclists to my right, not many hands were still up. The following question had been “Who wants a hormone injection right now?”, and evidently I was the first to have volunteered.

Except, I didn’t want to be stabbed with a hormone needle. But it was too late, and I was approached by the woman holding a dripping cartridge-filled syringe. She began stabbing people through their jeans as they rested on their feet, holding up heavy Harleys. I moved to avoid the needle, and it went into a fold in my pants, barely touching my skin. Finally, I decided it was useless to resist, and I moved into the device and got my shot.

“What kind of hormone is it?” I asked the woman next to me, expecting a common one like testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone. But is was something different altogether.
“What does it do?”
“It helps your food go down faster”, she explained.
“So it makes you lose weight?” I tried to confirm.
“No… it just makes your food go down faster.”
“So that you can build more muscle?” I was still confused.
“No, just so you don’t feel so full after eating.”
This all seemed rather harmless — and pointless — to me, so I relaxed.

So in the end I remained stuck with my pink motorcycle and gained a mysterious hormone boost.